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“ Molly took the scrap of paper and unfolded it. 


7f 


— Page 92, 



HER FATHER’S SHARE 


A NOVEL 

BY 

EDITH M. POWER 


WITH THREE ILLUSTRATIONS 



Nsw York, Cincinnati, Chicago 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PUBLISHER OF BKNZIGER’s MAGAZINE 

1916 



Copyright, 1916, by Bedziger Brothers 



NOV II 19(6 


©CI.A445611 

V 


A MARIA DAS DORES 
SANDADES 


E. M. P. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Letter 9 

11 . Fellow Passengers 20 

III. A Collision 34 

IV. “Sapphire and Turquoise’’ . . 46 

V. The Donna Guilhermina . . 58 

VI. Among Her Own 72 

VII. Guida Writes 88 

VIII. Cousin Luiz 100 

IX. Guida’s Story 115 

X. The Mother 13 1 

XL Friends 146 

XI 1 . Two Letters 157 

XIII. Our Lady of Solitude .... 166 

XIV. Christmas Shopping . . . . 180 

XV. Payment 194 

XVI. Mafalda’s Secret 204 

XVII. John Mahtyn is Curious . . . 219 

XVIII. Mafalda’s Engagement . . .231 

XIX. Guida and John Martyn . . .241 

XX. The Declaration 255 

XXL Justice 267 

XXII. Guida’s Share 281 


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HER FATHER’S SHARE 

CHAPTER I 

THE LETTER 

** ‘I^XCELLENTISSIMA Senhora Donna^ 
X_> Maria Margarida Moura de Vas- 
concellos Alvarenga!’ Sure, there’s no one 
like that living here at all, at all!” 

The postboy stood irresolute, staring from 
the thin foreign letter with its bright blue 
stamp to the girl who stood just inside the 
porch, eagerly looking through the rest of 
the bundle he had just brought. 

“But the address is in it all the same,” he 
went on, “or at least part of it: ‘Casa de 
Rathmor, Kilmacud, County Kilkenny, 
Irlanda.’ A queer mixture altogether, and 
the stamp one I never remember to have 
seen before,” 

His eyes wandered over the front of the 
house as if he half expected some strange 
foreign face to appear at one of the small 
windows framed in the ivy which covered 
it from foundation to roof, and then back 

9 


10 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

to the girl, who raised her head from her 
letters. 

“What is that you are saying, Larry?” 
she asked. “Maria Margarida, and a 
Portuguese stamp. Why it must be from — 
oh, yes, Larry, she lives here.” 

Larry’s bright blue eyes opened a little 
wider in his freckled face. 

“Well, then. Miss Mollie, it is the first 
I have heard of it, and yet I do be getting 
most of the news of them that come to Kil- 
macud from my brother at the railway sta- 
tion.” 

“Ah, I’ve no doubt you’re a sad gossip, 
Larry,” rejoined the girl, taking the letter 
from him, “and there are few things doing 
in the neighborhood that you do not know 
all about. All the same, Maria Margarida 
has been living here some time, and hopes 
to go on living here a while longer. Larry, 
if you stand there staring any longer you 
will lose the post, and there is a most im- 
portant card of mine in the bag I have just 
given you.” 

Larry started, put a hand to his cap, and 
turned briskly away, though from the fact 


THE LETTER 


11 


that he twice stopped short in the drive and 
stood staring back at the house, the girl 
gathered that the problem still exercised his 
mind. 

“Poor Maria Margarida!” she said to 
herself, as she moved across the hall toward 
the sitting-room. “I wonder how much of 
your future is bound up in this bit of paper, 
the third letter which I have ever received 
from my grandmother. The first sent me 
away from here to the convent in Dublin, 
the second whisked me off from there to 
the one in Paris, and now the third ” 

“The third what, dear child?” said a voice 
from the big armchair beside the hearth. 
“Is it letters you are talking about?” 

“A letter, grandfather, a Portuguese let- 
ter from my grandmother. I know the 
writing, though it is shakier than it used 
to be.” 

“Ay, ay, we none of us grow younger, 
Mollie. And what does she say?” 

“Oh, do you think I have the courage to 
open it like that, grandfather? I have a 
feeling, a prophetic feeling, that it is going 
to upset our lives in some way.” 


12 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Well, child, when the cup’s got a taste- 
less liquid at best, it is none the worse for 
a little upsetting. Life has been dull 
enough for you the past months in this 
lonely place out at the back of beyond, and 
now since the rheumatism has me fast in its 
clutches, stopping even our daily rides to- 
gether, and these autumn mists come down 
Jike wet blankets day after day ” 

But the girl interruped him with a merry 
laugh. 

“It does not look very cheerful, cer- 
tainly,” she said, as she followed his look 
out of the window. A fitful gleam of sun- 
shine slipping between two ragged clouds 
shone for a moment on the soaked lawn 
with its row of inky yews, and the flower- 
beds in which a few drenched Michaelmas 
'daisies still tried to make a show. Beyond 
the green-stained stone balustrade half a 
dozen little satiny black Kerry cows 
browsed philosophically in the long 
meadow which sloped down to the poplar- 
fringed brook, beyond which again the 
ground rose in a long, straight ridge, so 
straight that the eye grew tired of the mo- 


THE LETTER 


13 


notonous greenish Jine against the gray sky. 
Mollie laughed again, a merry, light- 
hearted laugh. 

“No, it does not look very cheerful,” she 
repeated. “But I love it all, the wet hedges 
and the mossy lanes, and the bog down there 
with its rushes and its black holes and the 
brown brook — every single bit of it, gray 
sky and all.” 

“Ah, child, it is the sunshine in your heart 
which lights up this bit of poor old Ireland, 
plain and commonplace as it is! Wait till 
you have seen your own country, with its 
glowing blue skies and its flowers — not but 
what old Ireland is worth it a dozen times 
over any day.” 

“There’s the true patriot for you,” 
laughed Mollie, “and though I’ve only half 
a right to it, I’d be willing myself to give 
up the sunny south and its marvels for my 
cross old grandfather and this wet, ugly cor- 
ner of the world.” 

She had slipped down on the rug beside 
him as she spoke, and at her last word bent 
over and rubbed her soft cheek caressingly 


14 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


against the wrinkled hand on the arm of the 
chair. 

“All the same, child Mollie,” he said 
gently, passing his fingers over her soft, 
cloudy black hair, “there will come a day 
sooner or later when you will be left alone, 
and it is that which makes that letter wel- 
come. For most of my income dies with 
me, whereas your father’s mother is a rich 
woman, and you are, as far as I know, the 
last of the family.” 

“But my father was not an only child, was 
he?” asked the girl. 

“No, there was another son,” answered 
the old man, after a moment’s silence. 

“Then I have an uncle. Do you know 
what he is like?” 

“I never met him, though I have heard 
him spoken of sometimes. But he is dead, 
child, long dead. He died not long after 
your own father.” 

“And was he married? Did he leave any 
children?” 

“I never heard. I do not think so. He 
died far away from home, in America, I be- 
lieve, though I have no notion where.” 


THE LETTER 


15 


“How lonely it sounds! My father died 
young enough, but at least it was in his own 
land, with friends near him.” 

“Yes, but he had made the friends and 
kept them.” 

“That means that my uncle ” 

“They were utterly unlike, the two broth- 
ers, from all I could gather. Well, well, 
both are dead now, and your poor mother 
has followed them, and here are you, little 
Mollie, with only an old grandfather in Ire- 
land and a still older grandmother in Por- 
tugal — for she is older than I, though no 
power on earth would bring her to acknowl- 
edge the fact. The grandfather has done 
what he could for his daughter’s child. It 
is little at best. Let us see what the wealthy 
grandmother has in view for her son’s 
daughter.” 

With a sudden air of resolution Mollie 
tore open the thin envelope. 

“If it is in Portuguese you must read it, 
grandfather. I have forgotten every word 
I once knew, and it was only baby talk at 
the best.” 


16 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


But it was in English, of a sort, but still 
understandable. And this is how it ran : 

‘'My Dear Granddaughter: 

“I received last month the report of your studies 
up to July, and am rejoiced to see that your progress 
in this, the last year of your study time, was as it 
should be. But now, dear child, the years of study 
are achieved you are arrived at the edge of becom- 
ing a young lady of society. Your toilet will require 
care and attention. It is necessary that you should 
have some practice in going into the world, and so 
prepare for the position you will one day hold. From 
what your excellent grandfather has informed me, you 
have but small occasion of going into society in the 
district where his quinta is situated. This being so, 
I feel sure that he will upraise no objection when I 
make my claim to a share of your companionship. 

“As has been my custom for some years, I intend 
to pass the winter in my property near Funchal, and 
I should desire you to come at once so as to pass it 
with me. Since your good grandfather’s health pre- 
vents his accompanying you, and giving me, as I have 
hoped, the pleasure of his society, I have made arrange- 
ments for you to travel under the guard of the wife 
of a captain of a steamer which journeys between Lon- 
don and Oporto. The captain, with whom I have 
spoken, is a very serious man, and his wife will take 
every care of you. I desire you to take this boat, the 
Guadiana, for another reason besides this one I have 
mentioned. The steamer in which I intend to travel 
is leaving here in a few days after you arrive. You 


THE LETTER 


17 


will thus entirely avoid traveling alone, which is not 
convenable for a Portuguese young lady. I have sent 
instructions to my man of affairs at London to write 
and make all arrangements with your excellent grand- 
father. The S. S. Guadiana, which is leaving here in 
three days, will remain about a week in London. So 
you will start, I hope, at the end of November, and, 
if God wills it, reach Oporto some five days later. I 
need not add with what pleasure I await your coming. 
Present my distinguished compliments to your excellent 
and respectable grandfather, and believe me, your de- 
voted grandmother, 

“Guilhermina Mattos Baldaque Moura 

DE Vasconcellos Alvarenga.’’ 

Mollie laid down the letter with a deep 
sigh. 

“Only too understandable,” she said, and 
looked up at the old man with a pleading 
look in her eyes. 

But he shook his head with great decision. 

“There is no way out, Mollie machree. 
It is her turn now,” and then as the tears 
rushed into her beautiful, black-fringed 
blue eyes. “Why, child, you do not know 
what you have to look forward to! Have 
you no wish to see your father’s land, your 
own for that matter?” 

“Yes, it has been my dream for ever 


18 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


SO long. But to go alone among stran- 
gers ” 

The old man smiled reassuringly. 

“Your own people, child, and good 
warm-hearted folk at that. Why, where is 
your courage, Mollie?” 

Mollie flushed and tried to wink her tears 
away, but in spite of the effort one big drop 
rolled down her cheek. 

“My courage?” she repeated in a tone of 
reflection. “That is just what I am asking 
myself. And I do not believe I have any. 
I think that is just my failing, grandfather. 
I have often thought so, I am a coward, not 
for pain or danger exactly, at least I hope 
not, but for change, for new things, for any- 
thing that is strange and different from the 
dear old every-day life. Of course, now I 
have the excuse that I must leave you be- 
hind as well as dear old Rathmor, but that 
does not change the fact. I am simply hat- 
ing the idea of going away alone into a new 
life, and that is cowardly, I know.” 

She looked up at him with questioning 
eyes, a smile gleaming now in their still 
tear-wet depths. He smiled bravely back, 


THE LETTER 19 

repressing a sigh for the blank, lonely days 
to come. 

“Well, perhaps it is not exactly adventur- 
ous or bold,” he said, “but it is something 
to have discovered the tendency at all. That 
is a first step toward curing it, is it not? So 
we will both turn our efforts in that direc- 
tion, Mollie child, and see what courage we 
can gather between us. For that is a point 
in which good-bys have a most unfortunate 
resemblance to quarrels, you know — it takes 
two to make them.” 


CHAPTER II 


FELLOW PASSENGERS 

T he weather all day had wavered in an 
undecided fashion between fog and 
thin, drizzling rain, but by four o’clock, 
when Mollie’s cab turned the corner of the 
last squalid street leading down to Shad- 
well Basin, rain had conquered, and it was 
through a veil of gray, glistening drops that 
she first saw that especially dreary and for- 
saken bit of London Docks, the inky basin, 
and the smartly painted but very small 
steamer, which was to bear her to her new 
home across a thousand miles of water. 

“I hope you will be all right, Mollie,” 
said the London cousin, in whose house she 
had been spending the last week. Her tone 
implied that she rather doubted it, and poor 
Mollie’s already heavy heart sank a little 
lower still as she followed her boxes across 
the narrow gangway to the ship. The older 
lady, lifting her skirts from the glistening 
20 


FELLOW PASSENGERS 


21 


planks, looked round with a dissatisfied air 
at the encumbered deck, and with hardly 
less disdain at the small saloon out of which 
the half dozen cabins opened. 

But Mollie’s eyes brightened at the sight 
of the cheerful little lady who rose from her 
cushioned wicker chair beside the open 
stove, and now came forward to welcome 
her. She had met her the day before, and 
in these strange new surroundings she 
seemed almost an old acquaintance. 

“I am so glad you are in good time,” she 
said. “Just at the last moment we have 
heard that there is another passenger, a lady, 
too. I wanted to know if you would rather 
have a small cabin to yourself, or share the 
lady’s larger cabin with her. I will show 
you both and you can choose for yourself. 
First come, first served, you know. Most 
ladies prefer the larger cabin, because there 
is more air. A port-hole gives on the lower 
deck and can be kept open in nearly all 
weathers.” 

“Oh, I should advise you to choose the 
larger one, Mollie,” said her cousin. There 
was a somewhat sarcastic accent on the word 


22 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


^‘larger” but it was quite lost on little Mrs. 
Sullivan. 

“It is not bad, is it?” she said cheerfully 
to Mollie. “The couch here is comfortable, 
and luckily this time we are not carrying 
onions nor oxen nor anything of that kind 
on the lower deck. The berths are pretty 
wide, and there is plenty of room for two. 
There have been four here, sometimes, 
when the boat was very crowded. We are 
only licensed for eight passengers in all, but 
the gentlemen sign on as stewards or deck- 
hands, and we manage to fit them all in.” 

“Are there many passengers this time?” 
asked Mollie. 

“Oh, no. This is not the time of year for 
them. Besides us two, for I am a passen- 
ger this trip, there are a few more young 
ladies, and now this new one. She is young, 
too, I think, or at least unmarried. A Miss 
More or Moore — perhaps she is Irish like 
ourselves.” 

She was interrupted by the sound of 
voices and footsteps overhead and hastened 
out to meet two girls, both heavily laden 


FELLOW PASSENGERS 23 

with many small parcels, who came laugh- 
ing and talking into the saloon. 

“I think I’ll take this side,” said Mollie, 
putting her big coat down on the berth 
which ran longways with the ship. “The 
upper one to sleep in, the lower for my 
things. Oh, I do hope I shall be a good 
sailor! It was always all right from Dover 
to Calais and Waterford to Milford, but 
this boat seems awfully small to go wan- 
dering about the Atlantic Ocean in.” 

“The captain’s wife seems a good sort,” 
said the cousin, “and those two, who, since 
they know her so well, have doubtless made 
the journey before, seem in good spirits 
enough about it. I suppose I must be leav- 
ing you, Mollie ” 

But this Mrs. Sullivan would not hear of. 

“Sure, we are not starting for a few hours 
yet. You’ll not refuse a cup of tea. It will 
be ready in a jiffy now. I have sent the 
steward to fetch the boiling water, and I’ll 
have it wetted in a moment.” 

They made a very cosy little meal at the 
warm end of the saloon under the hanging 
lamp. 


24 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

“The last repast of the condemned!” 
laughed one of the newcomers, Lucy 
Hamer, a slight, yellow-haired little body 
of about twenty-two, helping herself to an- 
other slice of the rich, crumbly cake which 
Mrs, Sullivan had unwrapped from its sil- 
ver paper to put on the table. “After this, 
sighs and groans, followed by weak tea and 
toast.” 

“Nonsense!” said the other, a taller and 
older as well as graver girl, with big green- 
ish gray eyes and quantities of soft brown 
hair. “If only you had more courage and 
less imagination you would never be ill at 
all.” 

“Like the Christian Science people! I 
wonder if Mrs. Eddy was ever seasick? A 
trip in this boat through the Bay of Biscay 
in the sort of weather we had when I came 
over in September — that would be a test 
worth trying, and a salutary penitential 
exercise into the bargain! Are you a good 
sailor. Miss Moore?” 

“I do not know yet,” said Mollie. It was 
not worth while correcting the mistake in 
her name. Most people, on first hearing 


FELLOW PASSENGERS 


25 


the one she kept out of the string she owned, 
for everyday use, “Moura,” took up that 
pronunciation of it. “I suppose you have 
made the journey before?” 

“Three times,” said Miss Hamer, “and 
always vowed that each one should be the 
last. Sybil Meredith here is a veteran. 
This is your eighth trip, is it not, Sybil?” 

“Yes, my eighth,” said Sybil Meredith. 

“Then you have lived a long time in Por- 
tugal?” said Mollie, with interest. 

“Nearly twelve years,” was the answer. 

“And of course you can speak Portu- 
guese? I wish I could.” 

“Oh, you will soon learn,” said Miss 
Hamer. “It sounds like bad French mixed 
up with Latin, but to speak it you must 
twist your tongue round every vowel and 
and be sure to put ‘sh’ wherever you can 
fit it in.” 

Mollie smiled at this unflattering descrip- 
tion of her native tongue, but Mrs. Sullivan 
took up the cudgels in its defence. 

“I’m sure it is a very pretty language,” 
she said, “and much pleasanter to listen to 
than Spanish, which always makes you 


26 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


fancy that they have something in their 
mouths which makes them lisp all the time. 
You will soon remember your Portuguese 
again, Miss Mollie, once you get back to 
the place. It is only want of practice.” 

“Then you have been to Portugal before, 
Miss Moore?” asked Lucy Hamer. 

“She was born there,” explained the cap- 
tain’s wife, “and her name is not Moore at 
all, but Moura — Maria Margarida Moura 
de Vasconcellos Alvarenga. That is right, 
is it not, Miss Mollie?” 

She looked at Mollie with a smile, while 
Miss Hamer uttered an exclamation of sur- 
prise, which seemed as if it had found an 
echo in the dimness outside the circle of 
lamplight. At the same moment a dark 
figure came forward from the doorway, and 
Mrs. Sullivan started from her seat. 

""That will be Miss Moore, our new pas- 
senger,” she said. “Is it not?” 

“Yes,” said the newcomer, laying down 
her bag on the end of the table. She was 
rather a striking girl, not pretty, but in- 
teresting, with soft black hair, a pale but not 
sallow skin, and eyes which were surpris- 


FELLOW PASSENGERS 


27 


ingly light under their black lashes. Her 
dark gray costume was English in cut, but 
the bow of plaid ribbon at her neck and 
her crimson belt, as well as the small hat 
which rested on her severely-dressed hair, 
had together a curiously foreign air. Lucy 
Hamer stared at her for a moment in rather 
impolite surprise. 

"That is Miss Moore?” she said to her- 
self. “Well, I should have said that that 
was the Senhora Donna Maria Margarida, 
and the rest — who, for her part, looks as 
much of a fresh Irish colleen as they make 
them.” 

“At any rate, you will not be at a loss for 
company, Mollie,” said her cousin, as they 
stood once more on the wet, slippery deck. 
All round the thin veil of rain, stained here 
and there with the yellow blur of a gas- 
lamp, shut out the dreary dock. Mollie 
shivered as she watched the cab which was 
carrying away her cousin disappear up the 
sordid, dismal street. Her heart was sore 
for the home she had left behind, and full 
of shrinking from the strange unknown one 
she was going to. She felt very forlorn and 


28 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


lonely, as she turned and climbed back down 
the narrow way to the saloon. A sound of 
music came from behind the red curtain 
they had drawn before the door, the lively 
tinkle of a guitar, on which Lucy was pick- 
ing out the notes of a plaintive little melody. 
There was something familiar in it, and 
Mollie hummed over a bar or two as she 
moved toward the others. Lucy looked up 
eagerly. 

“You know the tune?” she said. “It is a 
fado — one of those popular tunes they put 
all sorts of different words to, often mak- 
ing them up as the occasion suggests. I ex- 
pect your nurse sang it to you often enough. 
But I am only a beginner on the guitar. You 
have no notion what music one can get out 
of it. You should hear my master, a little 
dried-up monkey of a man, with the melo- 
dious name of Heliodoro Thomaz Furtado. 
He can make his guitar laugh and cry like 
a human being.” 

She broke into a lively little air which 
seemed to put quicksilver into one’s feet. 

“That is his,” she said. “One can hardly 
help dancing to it,” 


FELLOW PASSENGERS 


29 


“It makes one think of a feast-day,” put 
in Sybil, “one of those blazing June days, 
when people come from far and near, danc- 
ing for miles along the road, barefoot or in 
their wooden shoes, a sort of jiggy dance 
with uplifted, snapping fingers by twos and 

threes, singing together ” 

Lucy broke off again into a slow, plain- 
tive tune : 

“Se as lagrimas fossem pedras 
Com as que eu tinho chorado, 

Mandava fazer castellos 
No meio do mar salgado.” 

“If tears, if tears were stones 
With the tears wept by me, 

I should have castles built 

In the midst of the salt sea.” 

“No, that’s too appropriate — one feels 
blue enough as it is! Just two months at 
home and then three more years a thousand 
miles away from every one, and the Bay of 
Biscay into the bargain. No, my dears! 
Let’s be merry while we can. And that re- 
minds me. I have got about three dozen 
things to settle while I am still capable of 


30 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


movement. Once we pass Gravesend I am 
no longer a human creature, but a mere limp 
bundle of misery.” 

She jumped up, and was off into her cabin 
in a flash, while Mollie, bethinking herself 
of her new cabin-mate, turned away into 
her own. Unlike the four smaller ones, two 
on either side, hers did not open straight 
into the saloon, but lay back behind a nar- 
row passage shut off by a curtain. The cur- 
tain was drawn over and the door behind it 
was shut. Mollie knocked, but apparently 
the noise on deck overhead drowned the 
sound, for no answer came. After a mo- 
ment, she tried the door, which opened 
noiselessly, and went in. After all, it was 
as much her cabin as that of the newcomer, 
whom, as yet, she had hardly seen. She had 
her back turned now, bending over the nar- 
row velvet-covered lounge under the port- 
hole giving on the lower deck. In the dim 
light of the small lamp Mollie could not 
see what it was that held her attention so 
closely that she never even noticed her en- 
trance. But the next step brought her in 
triew of the couch, and then she saw that 


FELLOW PASSENGERS 


31 


it was at a parcel of her own that the other 
was staring so intently, a small box of Bel- 
leek china which she was carrying as a pres- 
ent from her grandfather to Donna Guilher- 
mina, and on the paper wrapper of which 
he had, with his shaky old hand, written 
her full address. 

“Inquisitive thing!” thought Mollie, and 
the girl, turning, seemed to read the words 
on her lips. She colored slightly, then she 
smiled, and with the smile her sad, rather 
severe features lighted up marvelously, till 
she became almost pretty. 

“You are thinking me very inquisitive,” 
she said, “and indeed it is so. But the strange 
name attracted me. It is Portuguese, of 
course?” 

“Yes,” said Mollie, disarmed by the 
smile. 

“And you are Portuguese, too?” 

“Half only,” said Mollie, “and I know 
it’s the Irish half of me which is uppermost, 
not to say largest. I am afraid that my Por- 
tuguese relatives will be very disappointed.” 

“Oh, I do not think so,” said Miss Moore, 
smiling again, and Mollie found herself 


32 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


blushing almost before she realized that she 
was being paid a compliment. 

That night, lying awake in her berth and 
listening to the wash of the water against 
the side close to her ear as the steamer 
slipped down the river toward Gravesend, 
Mollie reviewed the day’s experiences, and 
felt her heavy heart lighten a little. Her 
unknown home was beginning to take on 
definite colors, and those were mostly bright 
ones. Mollie felt something in her, some 
hitherto unsuspected fiber stirring in eager 
anticipation of the blue skies, the golden 
sunshine, the clear, crystal air of her father’s 
country. Then her traveling companions 
were unusually interesting, pleasant girls. 
Mollie, drowsy now, let her thoughts wan- 
der from one to the other, and found them 
always lingering longest with Miss Moore. 
It was not that she liked her better than 
the other two — on the contrary, Sybil Mere- 
dith’s steadfast gray-green eyes and Lucy 
Hamer’s laughing philosophy were much 
more to her taste than the taciturnity of the 
pale, serious, dark-haired girl who lay now 


FELLOW PASSENGERS 


33 


quietly sleeping in the berth at right angles 
to her own. 

But whether she liked her or not, and it 
was yet early days to decide that, she felt 
strangely interested in her. There were 
movements of hers, a look at times, some- 
thing even more intangible, which seemed 
strangely familiar. Even her eyes, those 
light but very clear blue eyes under their 
black lashes — surely somewhere, in the dim 
past, she had seen them before! She must 
ask her, she decided dreamily, as lulled by 
the even, regular movement and the wash 
of the water close to her ears, she at last fell 
into a deep, peaceful sleep. 


CHAPTER III 


A COLLISION 



GLEAM of sunshine was shining right 


■L V across the cabin when Mollie woke 
from a troubled dream, and lay for a mo- 
ment wondering where in the world she was. 
A look to her right hand, where the small, 
round port-hole gave a glimpse of a tumbled 
expanse of blue, white-flecked water, soon 
cleared her ideas, and she sat up in her 
berth only, however, to lie down again a mo- 
ment later, feeling decidedly giddy and un- 
comfortable. It was one thing, she reflected, 
to get out of bed in Waterford Harbor or 
Milford Haven and dress quietly while the 
boat kept quiet under one’s feet, and quite 
another to front the complicated business 
of the toilet while all this jigging up and 
down and straining of boards and rattle of 
chains and beat of the screw, which seemed 
only a few yards away, was going on around 
her. So she lay quiet, wondering what the 


34 


A COLLISION 


35 


others were doing. Miss Moore’s berth was 
empty, so she at least had been brave enough 
to dress. 

It was with a positive feeling of envy that 
Mollie greeted Mrs. Sullivan, as that small 
lady, very spick and span in a flannel coat 
and skirt with a neat motor-cap on her yel- 
low hair, appeared beside her. 

“Well, well!” she said. “You do not feel 
inclined to get up for breakfast? What 
shall I send you — steak and onions, ham and 
eggs, or a kippered? Or will you prefer 
just tea and toast like Miss Meredith. The 
other one. Miss Hamer, is prostrate already, 
but cheerful as ever in spite of it all.” 

Tea and toast was Mollie’s choice. The 
other dishes had lost the attractiveness they 
were wont to have after an hour’s brisk ride 
across the bog with her grandfather, or a 
scamper with the dogs up and down the long 
avenue on a dewy, misty, spring morning. 
But even the tea and toast when they came 
brought a lump to her throat, and a tear or 
two trickled down into the thick cup as the 
picture rose before her of the cosy little din- 
ing-room at home, with its glowing turf 


36 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


fire and the snowy table where she had been 
wont to preside so proudly, pouring out 
the good strong tea from the old black tea- 
pot which they both preferred to the more 
stately silver one on the sideboard, and the 
rich yellow cream so thick it would hardly 
pour at all. It was a relief to finish gulping 
down the nasty stuff they called tea on 
board, and lying down again, let her 
thoughts wander back to the dear old place 
which must be so lonely now, till, the rock- 
ing aiding, she forgot homesickness and 
longing alike in a doze. 

When Mollie awoke the sun no longer 
shone in at the port-hole, nor indeed was 
there any tossing expanse visible through 
the little round of glass, across which it 
seemed as if some one had drawn a thick 
grayish veil. The boat was much steadier, 
and the beat of the screw less perceptible. 
On the other hand, from minute to minute, 
the queer, muffled, croaking noise, some- 
thing between a bleat and a scream, of the 
foghorn sounded through the silence. 
Mollie climbed cautiously out of her berth. 
There was no excuse for lying abed any 


A COLLISION 


37 


longer now that dressing did not involve a 
strenuous bout of gymnastic exercise as well. 

She felt slightly giddy, but very pleased 
with herself, when she opened the door of 
the cabin and appeared in the saloon be- 
yond. Mrs. Sullivan, sitting in her basket- 
chair by the fire, started up with an excla- 
mation of pleasure. 

“There, now, and I just thinking of going 
in to see if I could help you a bit. It 
will do you good to be up. Do you feel like 
a turn on deck? Miss Moore and Miss 
Meredith are taking a brisk walk — there is 
only Miss Hamer still in bed, and she, poor 
thing, would feel the motion on a duck- 
pond. But, if the weather keeps on like this, 
I do not despair of getting her up, too.” 

Mollie could not restrain a gasp of sur- 
prise when she emerged from below into a 
layer of fog, through which she only dimly 
perceived the figures of the other two. 
Around and above it lay in thick, impene- 
trable folds, pierced at short intervals by 
the wail of the foghorn. Even while she 
stood there wondering, the long-drawn hoot 
was echoed to the right, and she could dimly 


38 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


see, not five hundred yards away, a darker 
patch gliding through the thick air in the 
opposite direction. 

“Creepy, is it not?” said Sybil. “And 
this is a crowded part of the Channel, too. 
That is why we have to slow down to less 
than half speed. But it is smooth enough — 
that is one comfort.” 

As the day went on it grew even smoother, 
till Lucy Hamer summoned courage to 
creep up and join the group as they sat, 
warmly wrapped, in the shelter of the chart- 
room. 

“If one could always go softly like this,” 
she said, “I should not half mind traveling. 
As it is, I’d go overland every time, but 
it’s much dearer, especially when one is 
carrying back heaps of things! And it’s so 
lonely, too. And the Spanish trains bump 
very little less than the ship.” 

“One goes softly but slowly, too,” said 
Mollie. “This will keep us back.” 

“Oh, yes ; a day or two, I expect.” 

“Not more, I hope, or I may miss the 
Madeira boat.” 

“You are going to Madeira?” 


A COLLISION 


39 


It was Miss Moore who spoke, joining in 
the conversation for the first time, and that 
in a tone of such eager interest that Mol- 
lie started. 

“Yes,” she said, “I am to spend the win- 
ter there. Do you know the place, perhaps?” 

“No,” answered the other, “only by hear- 
say, that is. It is very beautiful.” 

“A land where bright blossoms are scentless, 

And songless, bright birds.” 
quoted Lucy. “Lindsay Gordon must have 
been thinking about his old home and birth- 
place when he wrote that. I have heard an 
Australian complain that it is not at all true 
of Australia, but it does happen to be of 
Madeira.” 

“But not of Portugal, I hope?” said Mol- 
lie. 

“Oh, no, blossoms are not scentless there. 
Indeed, there are scents and to spare. It is 
a pity you are going off again as soon as 
you reach Oporto. You would like the pic- 
turesque old place.” 

“Oh, but I hope to return. My grand- 
mother speaks only of spending the winter 
in Funchal, where she has a quinta.’" 


40 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“She has a very handsome one in the 
country not far from the place where we 
spend the summer, too,” said Lucy. “But, 
perhaps, you know it.” 

“Freamunde, do you mean? I know it 
little enough, though it is there that I was 
born. But I went to Ireland so young I can 
only just remember vaguely white walls, 
very bright and shining, with great bunches 
of wistaria hanging over them — I can never 
see wistaria without thinking of those walls 
— and a big, dark, cool room, with a slip- 
pery floor, where some one gave me bis- 
cuits out of a silver box. It must have been 
my grandmother.” 

“I can not imagine Donna Guilhermina 
giving any one biscuits,” laughed Lucy. “If 
you had said an alms now, or a wise coun- 
sel, or a stately censure — one can not asso- 
ciate the word ‘scolding’ with that majestic 
lady, who makes one think of the days of 
powder and stiff brocades.” 

“But she is very kind in spite of her man- 
ner,” said Sybil, noting Mollie’s alarmed 
air. “I think it is only her loneliness which 
makes her so unapproachable. Her loneli- 


A COLLISION 


41 


ness, and perhaps her sorrows, too. I have 
known her to do very kind things, and I am 
sure that it would take very little to thaw 
her completely.” 

Lucy Hamer laughed outright at Mollie’s 
air of consternation. 

“Qui s^excuse, s' accuse! Do not mind our 
talk. Miss Mollie — or is it Donna Maria 
Margarida you prefer to be called? We 
have never had a chance of seeing Donna 
Guilhermina in her unfrozen moments. She 
considers my pupils the worst-behaved 
young people in Portugal — and I am not 
sure that she is not right, while Sybil’s peo- 
ple have fallen under her displeasure for 
quite another reason. So, you see, we are in 
no position to judge. I am sure you will get 
on splendidly with her.” 

But Mollie did not feel at all sure, and 
the future once more lost its bright colors 
and wrapped itself, like the sea and sky 
around her, in a dull gray fog. A great 
wave of homesickness came over her. The 
slow, monotonous movement of the boat, 
punctuated by the mournful toot of the fog- 
horn, became unendurable. She got up from 


42 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


her seat. “I think I shall go down to the 
saloon,” she said. “It is so cold here.” 

“Let us try a brisk walk up and down the 
deck first,” said Miss Moore. “It will 
warm our feet.” 

Mollie acquiesced, and the other put an 
arm through hers. For a few moments 
they walked in silence up and down the 
narrow space available on the afterdeck. 
The fog was growing thicker as the dusk 
came on. Mollie shivered. 

“Oh, how horribly dreary it is,” she said, 
and though she tried to speak cheerfully, 
her words ended in something very like a 
sob. 

“Yes, but you are going toward the sun- 
shine.” 

“That is quite true,” said Mollie. Though 
the other girl spoke simply enough there 
was in her voice a note which Mollie had 
already noticed once or twice, a note of for- 
lornness, of apartness. 

“I ought not to be grumbling, and that’s 
the truth,” she said now, “but I do love 
things to go on in the dear, same old way 
day after day; in the dear, same old places. 


A COLLISION 


43 


with the same people. I am rather like a 
cat, I know, I love familiar corners and 
hate change and upsetting. It is very un- 
adventurous of me, and even cowardly. I 
ought to be ashamed of myself, especially 
when I see the others. There’s that Miss 
Hamer, she was only eighteen when she 
left home to go all alone to a strange coun- 
try, and Miss Meredith — one has only to 
look at her to be sure that she is brave, and 
you — you are leaving home, too.” 

Miss Moore shook her head. “I have no 
home,” she said. 

“Well, your own country then.” 

“No, it is not my country either. I have 
no country, strictly speaking. If I had the 
catlike disposition you claim, it’s a most 
unhappy cat I’d have been, for I have never 
been able to stay long anywhere.” 

“Oh, you poor thing,” said Mollie. “But 
you are Irish, at any rate, by birth. At least 
your name is Irish.” 

Miss Moore hesitated. It seemed as if 
she was going to say something, which, 
after an effort, she restrained. There was 
a moment’s silence before she spoke. 


44 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Not my Christian name, at any rate. It 
is Guida.” 

“Guida,” said Mollie, “a pretty name, 
though I have never heard any one called 
by it. . . . Guida Moore.” 

Again it seemed as if the other girl was 
about to speak, but again she restrained her- 
self, and they walked up and down a few 
times more in silence. 

But when Mollie was lying once more 
in her berth, the old desolation returned. 
The boat was creeping slowly as ever 
through the oily water, the fog-horn 
hooted at intervals, the wash of the waves 
sounded close to her side. A great longing 
for the safe shelter of home, a great dread 
of the vague future came over her, and 
with a sob, choked back so as not to disturb 
her companion, the tears came at last, a 
rush of bitter tears pressed out by that un- 
endurable, aching sense of loss in her heart, 
the dull fear of the unknown future, against 
which she had battled all day. In spite of 
her efforts the sobs shook her. She pressed 
her face into the hard pillow, but she could 
not keep them down. In the quiet of the 


A COLLISION 


45 


cabin one sounded so loud that she tried to 
turn it into a cough, but Guida Moore 
moved uneasily. She would speak now, 
thought Mollie, half-dreading, half, in 
spite of herself, in her bitter loneliness, hop- 
ing for a word. And indeed the other girl 
turned over — she was awake evidently. 
Mollie held her breath. The next instant, 
with a sickening thud, the steamer crashed 
into something, and quivered from end to 
end. The flame in the hanging lamp shot 
high, then sank again. There were shouts 
and a hurried rush of feet sounded over- 
head, the fog-horn gave out a loud, despair- 
ing shriek. . . . 


CHAPTER IV 


“SAPPHIRE AND TURQUOISE" 

I T SEEMED to Mollie that the echo of the 
crash still rang in her ears when Guida 
Moore stood beside her, holding out her 
cloak. 

“I do not think it is anything,” she said, 
“but you had better put this on in case we 
have to run for it.” 

She wrapped the warm coat round Mol- 
lie’s shaking shoulders as she helped her out 
of her berth. She herself was quite calm. 

“I do not think it is serious,” she said. 
“We should have felt it already if there 
was anything the matter with the steamer. 
There, we are going on again.” 

She moved away to the door, and Mollie 
could hear her quiet voice outside, alternat- 
ing with Mrs. Sullivan’s quick, nervous 
tones. She came back after a moment. 

“It is nothing,” she said. “We struck a 
piece of floating wreckage, a great twisted 
46 


SAPPHIRE AND TURQUOISE’ 


47 


mass of ropes and timber, which might 
have made a hole in our side, but which 
luckily did not. The fog is as thick as ever. 
We are nearly a day late already.” 

“And I hope we shall be two or three,” 
said Mollie, sinking down on to the couch ; 
“because then I shall miss the Madeira boat 
and so gain nearly a fortnight before the 
second voyage. One at a time is quite 
enough.” 

She tried to laugh, but the attempt ended 
in a choke and a sob. 

“Get back into bed, you poor child,” said 
Guida. “It was a nasty shock.” 

She helped her into her berth again, and 
drew the tumbled clothes straight and close 
around her, then she moved away toward 
the shelf where the water-bottles stood. 
Mollie heard the clink of glass, and a mo- 
ment later Guida stood beside her again 
holding out a medicine-glass full of water 
clouded lightly with a few drops of milky 
liquid. 

“Drink it off,” she said, “it will do you 
good.” 

And Mollie obediently drank it down. 


\ 


48 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

even though she had to stop once or twice 
for the catching of her breath. 

“There,” said Guida, lightly brushing 
the tear-stained waves of hair from Mollie’s 
hot forehead and then drawing the little 
curtain further forward so as to shut out 
the light. “That will steady your nerves. 
Now, you must sleep. No more thinking. 
Things will look very different in the 
morning.” 

“How kind you are,” said Mollie. “It 
feels like being back at the convent, when 
the old Sister used to come with a tray of 
hot black-currant tea on winter nights, and 
every one who had even the suspicion of a 
cold made the most of it so as to get a cup 
and be tucked cosily up after it.” 

“That is a compliment, indeed,” said 
Guida. “No one has ever told me that I 
was anything so nice as an old Sister.” 

She drew the covering up round Mollie’s 
shoulders with a gentle, lingering touch, 
hesitated a moment, and then bent down 
and lightly pressed her cheek with her lips 
before turning away and climbing back 
into her own berth. 


“SAPPHIRE AND TURQUOISE” 49 

Mollie was languidly brushing her hair 
the next morning when her cabin com- 
panion, who as on the day before had got 
up before she was awake, came back into 
the cabin. 

“Let me help you,” she said, stopping be- 
hind Mollie so that her face was for a mo- 
ment visible in the glass over her shoulder. 

“Oh,” exclaimed Mollie, in frank ad- 
miration, “how nice you do look!” 

The black hair which had been so se- 
verely brushed away to the top of her head 
lay now in soft masses round Guida’s pale 
face, the thick, loose knot fastened at the 
nape of her neck with a big black bow in 
the fashion of Mollie’s own. The fresh air 
and movement had brought a faint flush of 
color into her cheeks, the smile which so 
wonderfully lighted up her features played 
now round her lips and in her eyes. 

“Oh, how nice you look,” repeated Mol- 
lie, staring at the double reflection, and 
then added, in a surprised tone, “Why, we 
are rather like each other!” 

It was true enough. In shape and color- 
ing the two faces were very similar. Now 


50 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

that Guida smiled, her lips took the soft 
curves of Mollie’s fresh young mouth, the 
hair of the two was indistinguishable in its 
cloudy blackness. Only the color of the 
eyes was different, their shade rather, for 
both pairs were blue. 

“Sapphire and turquoise,” said Guida. 

“No, turquoise is pretty, but too opaque 
for eyes,” protested Mollie. “Yours are the 
color of the sky.” 

“And yours of the sea,” laughed Guida. 
“What compliments we are paying each 
other. Well, now you know why my face 
seems familiar.” 

But Mollie shook her head. 

“It is not your face exactly — though to 
be sure we are really very much alike. Do 
you think that we are, perhaps, relatives?” 

Guida shook her head. The smile had 
faded, and with her usual expression of cold 
reserve the likeness to Mollie faded too. 

“Almost as far back as I can remember, 
I have had no one,” she said. “I have been 
alone in the world.” 

“Oh, you poor thing,” said Mollie, “I do 
pity you. Even a grandmother whom one 


“SAPPHIRE AND TURQUOISE” 51 

does not know and is dreadfully afraid of 
is better than that.” 

“Why are you afraid?” asked Guida, a 
little scornfully. She had taken the comb 
from Mollie’s unresisting hand and was 
now busy arranging her hair. “Why do 
you pay attention to what the others say? 
She would not send for you, I suppose, un- 
less she wanted you. It is something to be 
wanted.” 

“Oh, I know, but I told you I was a 
coward. I dread the unknown. I wish I 
could stay in Portugal. I am beginning to 
fancy I can remember it a little. It has a 
feeling of home almost. But to go wan- 
dering off again ” 

Guida interrupted with a laugh which 
sounded a little forced. 

“A dreadful prospect, truly; five days or 
so on a comfortable ship and then three 
months in a sort of fairy palace by the sea. 
I shall think of you when I sit, drumming 
French irregular verbs into my pupils’ 
heads — and pity you. Or shall I go in- 
stead?” 

“I wish you could,” sighed Mollie, “or 


52 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


better still, both of us. I want to see my 
grandmother, of course, because she is my 
father’s mother. It was his death which 
was the great grief of her life. He died so 
young, not twenty-seven, after only a few 
days’ illness. I can just remember him — a 
brown face with very white teeth and thick, 
black hair, which I used to rumple with 
my baby fingers, while he would hold me 
high up in the air and laugh up at me, call- 
ing me all sorts of pet names in Portu- 
guese. They are almost the only words I 
can remember. ‘O minha ricca menina, O 
seu maroto!' /I can only think of him as 
laughing. It seems to have been always 
sunshine in those days — there is no shadow 
in my memories of it, nothing but laughter 
and happiness till his death came to change 
it all. Such a sudden death! My mother 
never recovered from the shock. She was 
very ill, nearly dying, too, till they got her 
away back home again to Ireland. She 
rallied, then, but was never really well 
again, and not two years later she died.’^ 
“And you were left alone. How old 
were you?” 


“SAPPHIRE AND TURQUOISE” 53 

“Alone but for my grandfather. I was 
just eight. I am eighteen now.” 

“And I a year older. One would not 
think that there is so little difference be- 
tween us, but one grows old quickly when 
one comes face to face with life as I have 
done. For seven years now I have earned 
my own living, first au pair in a Belgian 
school, then later as a teacher. I have been 
teaching for five years, teaching and learn- 
ing. It will seem almost like holidays to 
leave one’s learning aside.” 

“Except for Portuguese — but you will 
soon pick that up.” 

Guida smiled, a peculiar smile. “Yes,” 
she said, “I shall have little difficulty with 
Portuguese.” 

“I suppose you know French awfully 
well,” said Mollie, “and German, perhaps?” 

“Yes, I can speak German. My best 
time was in Germany. I taught in a big 
school, but I lived with a private family. 
They were good people, a genuine old Ger- 
man Catholic family, and it was very home- 
like, the most homelike place I have 
known.” 


54 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

“Oh, you poor thing,” said Mollie, “you 
poor lonely thing! And I grumbling be- 
cause I am between two homes and pulled 
two ways at once. But I will really be 
brave. If only this fog would lift a little.” 

Toward afternoon she had her wish. The 
fog lightened gradually, and though the 
swell increased as they worked their way 
through the widening Channel out into the 
Atlantic, they made good progress till, to- 
ward the dawn of the next day, they turned 
southward by Ushant and had to make 
their way across the Bay full against a head- 
wind. No one had the courage to get up 
that day except Mrs. Sullivan, who made a 
short visit to the others and then returned 
to her cabin, it being practically impossible 
to keep one’s feet in the saloon. The next 
day was very little better, but when Mollie 
awoke the morning after, she perceived that 
the boat was steadier than it had been. 

“We are out of the Bay,” said Guida, 
coming into the cabin. “This afternoon, 
we shall be in sight of Portugal. Get up 
quickly and come and see Finisterre.” 

The Spanish coast lay, a long, irregular. 


“SAPPHIRE AND TURQUOISE” 55 

purple line against the eastern horizon, with 
here and there a cluster of white dots tell- 
ing where a village clung to the side of the 
hills. The sky was cloudless, the sea a deep, 
slate-blue, showing almost an indigo shade 
against the broad fiery orange band which, 
as the short day wore to its close, flamed 
along the west. Just before dusk they 
passed the entrance to the Bay of Vigo, half 
hidden between its rock-masses, and as 
darkness fell caught sight of the first lights 
twinkling along the coast of Portugal. 

“That is Valengia,” explained Sybil 
Meredith to Mollie, “and opposite it, but 
in Spain, lies Tuy, with a bit of a river as 
the frontier between. Physically, Galicia 
and Portugal belong to each other. The 
language is almost the same. There are 
many Gallegos in Porto, all the men-ser- 
vants nearly, and certainly all the porters, 
who lie in the sun, with their knots, at the 
corners of the streets, waiting to be hired.” 

The short twilight faded into dark and 
the stars flared out, great sparkling points 
of light in unfamiliar positions. It gave 


56 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


Mollie quite a shock to find that the Great 
Bear had moved up from the northern hori- 
zon almost overhead. 

“Well, ladies, I hope we shall make to- 
morrow morning’s tide into the Douro,” 
the captain informed them at dinner. “I 
am afraid we have cut it rather fine with 
that Madeira boat of yours. Miss Mollie. 
It is down to start to-morrow, but you must 
blame the fog, not me.” 

Mollie was not inclined to blame the fog. 
She had all the traveler’s longing for dry 
land again, and had, moreover, grown to 
like her traveling companions too much 
to be anxious to say good-by to them. With 
Guida she felt almost intimate, and that 
though she had been given very little more 
insight into the circumstances of her life. 
A sad, colorless existence it must have 
been, that she knew, but it was as much her 
friendlessness as her friendliness which 
opened her the way into Mollie’s warm, 
impulsive heart. 

However, since the boat which touched at 
Leixoes, the port belonging to Oporto, on 


“SAPPHIRE AND TURQUOISE” 57 

its way to Madeira, was due to start early 
the next morning, she had small fear that 
she would not get the respite she hoped for, 
and so a further chance of cultivating her 
new acquaintances. 


CHAPTER V 


THE DONNA GUILHERMINA 

M OLLIE did not sleep well that last night 
on the Guadiana. They had sat up 
late the evening before, chatting together, 
and then when, about eleven o’clock, the 
boat came to a stop and anchored for the 
night off the bar, had gone up on deck to 
see the lights along the coast, the bright 
cluster on the left marking the port of 
Leixoes built out into the sea around the 
mouth of the little River Lega, the long, 
irregular line between the wooded masses 
of the seaside suburb of St. Joao da Foz, 
the green, twinkling lanterns of the light- 
house on the jetty beside the bar, and the 
signal station of Our Lady of the Star 
beyond and above. 

But, though she only fell asleep after 
midnight, with the first glimmer of day- 
light Mollie awoke, and as soon as it grew 
light enough crept softly out of bed, dressed 
58 


THE DONNA GUILHERMINA 59 

hastily and quietly enough, not to disturb 
Guida, and then slipped up on deck, eager 
for the first glimpse of her father’s country. 

There it lay before her, all gray and dun 
in the cold light, the low, rock-sprinkled 
coast, the dim hills beyond, the misty, far- 
away masses of the old city, with one great, 
slender tower showing high above the rest 
like a finger pointing heavenward. Mollie 
shivered in the raw, damp air, a little 
chilled, too, in her eager expectation. But 
then the sun rose, and minute by minute 
the scene grew and warmed into life — the 
sky changed from palest steely blue to 
deep turquoise flecked with rosy cloudlets, 
the sea sparkled with a million points of 
light, the wide, smooth expanse of water at 
the river mouth gleamed like an opal. 
Along the sea-wall the palm-trees changed 
from black to green; the old fort, with its 
pink-washed dome and the flagstaff, from 
which the signals were flying in answer to 
their own, shone like some ancient mosque 
against the eastern sky. 

A fleet of black fishing-boats, sharply 
curved at prow and stern, moved home- 


60 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


ward past the bar. One of them hugged 
the sandy spit of land too closely and up- 
set at the extreme point, throwing out its 
silver burden of sardines in a great glitter- 
ing heap, over which a score of sea-gulls 
swooped and hovered, regardless of the ges- 
ticulating and noisy owners of the spoil. 

Mollie thought of Shadwell Basin and 
laughed aloud in sheer joy of the beauty 
of the scene before her, the keen, pure air, 
the golden sunshine, the gleaming, pearly 
shades of sea and sky. Something in her 
nature, some hitherto untouched fiber in her 
heart awoke to life, and for the first time 
she felt the eager stirring of that passion- 
ate love of the sun-bathed, glowing strip of 
land between mountains and ocean, which is 
such a characteristic of its children. 

“I thought I should find you up here,” 
said Sybil Meredith. They had just taken 
the pilot on board and were moving slowly 
forward toward the bar. This great sand- 
bank, fed continually by the deposits 
brought down from the wild mountain dis- 
tricts of the interior by the almost tropical 
rains, leaves only a narrow passage for en- 


THE DONNA GUILHERMINA 


61 


trance into the splendid port formed by the 
river — which no ship drawing more than 
eighteen feet of water can hope to negotiate, 
and for which reason all the larger steamers 
bound for the south have to touch at the new 
harbor of Leixoes. 

The two girls, climbing over coils of rope 
and chains, reached the prow, where they 
took up their station beside the still drip- 
ping anchor which had held them fast all 
night, producing a peculiar short roll which 
had not been without its disagreeable side 
for Lucy Hamer. 

“She will not venture out of bed till we 
are anchored safe and firm opposite the 
Alfandega,” explained Sybil, “but Miss 
Moore is stirring already. Is it not a lovely 
view? And look at that blue sky! Who 
would think that we are at the end of No- 
vember. See, there is the doctor’s boat and 
the customs man with him — and that other 
boat — it seems to have followed us in from 
the sea. Some other functionary, I sup- 
pose. There are always piles of papers.” 

Mollie only half heard her. They were 
moving now in the narrowest part of the 


62 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


channel between the end of the bar, where 
the gulls shrieked over the sardines, and the 
sea-wall, with the public gardens and a row 
of handsome villas beyond. On the south- 
ern side the ground rose directly from the 
water’s edge in softly swelling hills, but 
on the northern, gray, rugged cliffs backed 
the broad highway, down which the elec- 
tric trams whizzed, and two long-horned 
oxen pulled a heavily-laden cart. The 
Guadiana was moving very slowly up the 
broad bosom of the river. The boat with 
the doctor in it had fallen astern, while the 
yellow flag fluttered down from the mast- 
head; the other boat, in which an elderly 
man sat, was clinging now to the lower edge 
of the ladder which had been lowered for 
the pilot, and one of the boatmen shouted 
out something in Portuguese. 

It so happened that no one but Guida 
Moore, who had just emerged from below, 
was within earshot. She leaned over the 
railing and the man, who was warmly 
wrapped up in a somewhat shabby overcoat, 
looked up at her. 

“The Senhora Donna Maria Margarida 


THE DONNA GUILHERMINA 63 

Moura de Vasconcellos Alvarenga?” he 
asked. “She is on board? I want to speak 
to her and the captain at once.” 

“The captain is busy with the customs 
officer,” answered Guida, in Portuguese as 
easy as his own, “but as to Donna Maria 
Margarida . . .” 

“Perhaps it is the Senhora herself,” he 
interrupted, looking at her, “surely it is — 
the likeness is unmistakable. Am I right?” 

“Yes, I am Maria Margarida Moura de 
Vasconcellos Alvarenga,” answered Guida. 

“Ah, I thought so. Well, Senhora, there 
is no time to lose. The boat for Madeira 
is due to start in less than an hour. The 
Senhora Donna Guilhermina, your excel- 
lentissima grandmother, has sent me, her 
steward, to fetch you. I have the papers 
here, the permission from the port authori- 
ties, and a letter from her to the captain. 
You have no time to land. If you will be 
so good as to get them to bring up what lug- 
gage you have ready, we will go at once by 
the way of the sea to Leixces. The rest will 
follow by the next boat. The Senhora 
would have delayed her journey so as to 


64 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


give the menina time to rest a little, but she 
has been ill — a bronchial attack — and the 
doctor is anxious to get her off to a warmer 
climate at once. She has provided all you 
want for the journey, but it will be well if 
you will kindly hasten a little.” 

Guida took the paper and turned away. 
It had been an unreasoned impulse which 
had moved her to betray the identity she 
had kept from Mollie to this man. It was 
true enough, the name Mollie bore was 
also hers in every particular. Donna Guil- 
hermina was her grandmother also, she was 
as near of kin to her as Mollie herself — 
Mollie, who was to be the petted heiress, 
while she, the daughter of the outcast son, 
who in some dim way she did not even guess 
at, had disgraced his name, must work hard 
for a living. She must work and eat out 
her heart in vain longing, while a little, 
even, of the money which was her father’s 
right, would give her the leisure she had 
never had — and more, much more, would 
surely gain the end for which she had come 
thither, prepared to fight and scheme, to go 


THE DONNA GUILHERMINA 65 

almost any length since it meant more to 
her than life itself. 

It had been a desperate venture, since she 
knew practically nothing of her father’s 
family but its name and a few details she 
had been able to gather about the people to 
whom she was going and who bore it, too, 
at least in part. But on her first setting out, 
the meeting with Mollie had seemed a piece 
of good fortune almost incredible, and the 
growing friendship between them had 
served but to raise her hopes. A little 
longer, she had thought, and Mollie should 
know all, the link between them, her bitter 
past, and the future which still might be 
so bright. But now the time on which she 
had counted was taken from her and her 
secret was no longer. Why had she be- 
trayed her name, she asked herself, as these 
thoughts whirled through her brain in the 
space of the few steps from the side of the 
steamer to the door of the saloon? And 
with the question came the answer, too. It 
had been an unreasoned impulse, true, but 
it had had a purpose; an idea which had 
sprung suddenly into her mind with the old 


66 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


man’s words and the chance, the unexpected, 
unhoped-for chance, which they had 
offered. 

She paused, the paper and the letter in 
her hand, on the threshold of the saloon. If 
the captain were there and she could give 
it to him, of course, there was nothing to be 
done but to fetch Mollie as hastily as might 
be. If he were not 

With a beating heart she drew back the 
curtain. He was not there. But in the 
cabin she found Mrs. Sullivan, busily 
packing Mollie’s bag. 

“That careless child!” she said as Guida 
entered. “They may come for her the mo- 
ment we stop and she has nothing ready.” 

Guida picked up her own neat valise and 
small handbag. They were ready; there 
had never been anyone to make up for 
her small negligences, she thought a trifle 
bitterly. 

“The steward will take that up if you 
call him,” said Mrs. Sullivan, “or one of 
the sailors. What is that you say?” 

Guida had put down the permit and the 
letter on the edge of the dressing-shelf. 


THE DONNA GUILHERMINA 67 

“Papers for the captain? Oh, my dear, 
they overwhelm him with papers every 
time he enters port. Put it down on the 
saloon table as you pass, there’s a good girl. 
He’s somewhere with the Customs man in 
the hold, I believe; but he’ll be up in a 
minute.” 

Guida carried out her bag and the valise. 
There was a good deal of strength in her 
slight-looking frame. Then she came back 
for the papers. 

“She had a chance of looking,” she said 
to herself. “She might have looked.” 

But Mrs. Sullivan was too busy with her 
packing. Guida put the two papers down 
beside the blotter on the table in the saloon. 
She had a moment’s hesitation as to whether 
she would leave them open, or hide them 
under the others. It might make all the 
difference. A movement in Lucy Hamer’s 
cabin reminded her of a new danger, and 
she compromised by folding the letter in the 
permit and putting them both under the 
paperweight. Then she took up her things 
and moved resolutely up to the deck. 

She found the steward staring anxiously 


68 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


up at the steamer. One of the sailors, 
a Portuguese, hung over the rail and ex- 
changed talk with him. Guida felt her 
heart give a great leap of apprehension. 
But it appeared their talk had been of the 
voyage and its trials. 

“And you are lucky to be in port,” the 
old man was saying, “for they say that there 
is worse to come, but there ” 

He broke off at the sight of Guida, and 
the sailor politely picked up her valise and 
carried it down into the boat. 

"Muitissimo obrigado, Senhora," said he, 
delighted at the tip she gave him, and then 
as he loosened the rope which held the boat: 

"‘Vae com Deus, amigos : go with God.” 

The boat fell astern, and the steamer 
swept on. In an instant, the current and the 
oars aiding, they were a dozen yards away. 
Guida drew a deep breath. The widening 
strip represented more than a mere stretch 
of water. It was her Rubicon. For a mo- 
ment, as Mollie’s face when she learned her 
treachery — the pretty girlish face with the 
frank blue eyes — rose before her, her heart 
smote her; but she set her teeth firmly. 


THE DONNA GUILHERMINA 69 

Had she not been prepared to plot and 
scheme? This was barely even acting a lie. 
The men bent to their oars. The boat shot 
over the water, past the sandy point where 
the fishermen, their bare brown legs in the 
water, were gathering their scattered load 
into flat baskets, fastened one at each end 
of a long pole for convenience in carrying 
over the shoulder. And then they were out 
in the open sea, where the fragile little boat 
rocked ominously in the great breakers roll- 
ing up to the bar. The steward, Saturnino 
Bandeira he had told her was his name, 
clung nervously to the sides of the boat, but 
Guida had no leisure for fear. Her mind 
was still in a whirl of hope and remorse 
when they turned in at the opening of the 
port between the curved sea-walls. A big 
steamer, flying the Blue Peter at her mast- 
head, was getting under weigh as they drew 
up alongside. Guida had hardly time to 
scramble up the side when the boat began 
to move. 

“A Deus, a Deus!” cried Saturnino, 
waving his hand. “Till the spring, if God 
wills it.” 


70 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


She waved back, and then turned to meet 
the smiling face of an elderly servant 
dressed neatly in black, with a bright- 
checked silk handkerchief on her head. 

“The Senhora is waiting for you in her 
cabin, menina,” she said. “How lucky that 
you were in time! A little more and you 
would have missed us.” 

Mollie would have missed, thought 
Guida, Mollie could not have been got off 
in time. It was herself or neither of them. 
The thought braced her for the coming 
meeting, and she moved toward the cabin 
with a firm step and a smiling face which 
belied the quaking of her heart. But the 
old lady who looked up as she came in was 
not as formidable as she had imagined. 
There were even tears in the piercing black 
eyes as they turned to hers. 

“Diogo’s child, my son’s child,” she whis- 
pered, as Guida bent over her hand to kiss 
it in Portuguese style before kissing her 
cheek. Then she rose and putting a hand 
on either shoulder drew her toward the 
light. 

“You are like him,” she said after a long 


THE DONNA GUILHERMINA 


71 


look ; “yes, like him, but less than you were 
as a child. Is it the journey which has 
made you so pale? They told me you were 
fresh and rosy, as your mother when she 
won his heart.” 

Guida flushed crimson under her look. 

“Ah, that is better. You are like him; 
yes, but — but — well, well! My son’s 
child, his only child! We must hold to- 
gether, Mollie, we must hold together, we 
two. Of all the ancient line of Alvarengas 
of Freamunde, we are the only ones left.” 


CHAPTER VI 

AMONG HER OWN 
HE Guadiana came to a stop and an- 



X chored opposite the Custom House. 
The Douro makes a great bend just before 
reaching the town, which lies a couple of 
miles inland from the sea, so that the stretch 
from Masserellos where it, properly speak- 
ing, begins, to the great double bridge 
which spans the river both from the lower 
banks and the heights above, resembles 
rather a lake than an estuary. Mollie could 
not take her eyes from the scene around 
her. On the one hand the gray old city, 
with its spires and towers rising terrace 
above terrace to the weather-worn block 
of the Cathedral and episcopal palace, on 
the other the less rugged heights of Villa 
Nova da Gaya, a town new in the days of 
the Moorish king, from which it is said 
to derive its name, with tiers of deep rose- 
colored wine-lodges, and above them all. 


AMONG HER OWN 


73 


beside the bridge, the round church of the 
old Convent of the Serra, now an artillery 
barracks. It was from here that, a hun- 
dred years ago, Wellington looked down 
on the city, then held by Soult, and carried 
out his plans for expulsing the French, 
plans which succeeded so well that he and 
his officers were in time to eat in the even- 
ing the banquet prepared the same morn- 
ing for the French marshal and his staff. 

“Come,” said Sybil at last, “they will 
soon be here to meet us and take us off. I 
have several things to get ready, and I shall 
not be sorry for a cup of tea.” 

Mollie woke up as from a dream. 

“And I,” she said, “I have all my things 
to pack. But it is so interesting, all the 
colors, those bright tiles on the houses flash- 
ing in the sun, the blue sky, the air, those 
noisy people down by the quays! I am so 
glad we have missed the other boat. I 
never thought that I should be so grate- 
ful to the fog before.” 

They were picking their way to the after- 
deck, when a shout from the water made 
Sybil turn her head. 


74 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Ah, there’s Fraulein,” she said. “I 
knew she would come to meet me. She 
loves visiting steamers and never misses a 
chance. Good-morning, Fraulein,” she 
went on, waving to the small boat in which 
sat a plump, cheerful-looking person with 
fair hair and eye-glasses, “how are you? 
We have arrived safely, you see.” 

“Ach, yes, thanks to God. I have been 
worried. They predicted such stormy 
weather, and you are two days late. Good 
to see you again.” 

She had scrambled up the ladder as she 
spoke, and now held Sybil in a warm em- 
brace. Then she turned to Mollie. “And 
this will be the lady for the Alvarengas,” 
she said. “They showed me your portrait. 
You must let me introduce myself, as we 
shall meet often — Fraulein Hertha Stark, 
at your service.” She added a few words 
in German, while Mollie stared at her with 
a surprise which it seemed she shared. 

“But do you not understand German?” 
she said. “Ach, no. But they told me you 
were long in Germany, in my own town, 
Bonn. The girls are so anxious to learn 


AMONG HER OWN 


75 


German. They have begun with me, but I 
have not time enough. They will be much 
disappointed.” Sybil came to the rescue 
with an explanation of Mollie’s identity. 

“Ach so,” said Fraulein Stark. “I beg 
your pardon! But you are very like the 
portrait, and the governess is expected 
to-day.” 

“And she is here,” said Sybil. “Miss 
Moore. She will be below, I suppose.” 

Then she looked a little curiously at Mol- 
lie, noting for the first time the likeness 
which had caused Fraulein Stark’s mistake, 
and wondering that she had not noticed it 
before. They went down into the saloon, 
where breakfast had been spread, and found 
Lucy Hamer already installed at the table. 

“But where is Miss Moore?” asked Frau- 
lein, after they had exchanged greetings. 
“I am so anxious to make her acquaintance, 
as we shall meet so often.” 

“And as you are dying to have a little 
chat in German and hear news of the 
Fatherland,” said Lucy. “She is not far 
off, I expect. I heard her go up on deck 
not much more than half an hour ago.” 


76 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“But she is not there,” said Fraulein 
Hertha, and would have pursued the sub- 
ject but for Lucy’s interrupting her with 
half a dozen questions concerning matters 
in the town. She satisfied her curiosity and 
then returned to her inquiry as if nothing 
had come between. “Where is Miss 
Moore?” 

“Miss Moore! Here are some people to 
meet you!” It was Mrs. Sullivan’s voice 
from the doorway. She stood aside to let 
two girls, a small boy and a tall, thin gen- 
tleman pass her. He looked round the 
table, bowed amiably to the other three, and 
made with outstretched hand for Mollie, 
who sat alone on her side. 

“Mademoiselle, I presume?” he said in 
French. “I am so glad you have arrived 
safely. We have been very anxious about 
you, especially as more bad weather is com- 
ing. But I hear you had a pretty prosper- 
ous trip. Let me introduce my daugh- 
ters ” 

Mollie had taken his outstretched hand 
mechanically, unable to get a word in be- 
tween the rapid flow of his speech. “This is 


AMONG HER OWN 


77 


Maria Mafalda,” he continued, turning to 
the girl who stood nearest, “my eldest 
daughter, and this is Maria da Soledade, 
the second one. I am sure you will soon be 
very good friends. My son, Nuno ” 

Nuno, a dark-haired small boy of about 
seven, came forward and politely put up a 
chubby brown cheek to be kissed, looking 
at her the while out of a pair of roguish 
black eyes. Mollie kissed him very will- 
ingly, though in some bewilderment, and 
then went through the same ceremony with 
the two girls — Mafalda, tall and slim with 
dainty, clear-cut features, and a pair of 
bright brown eyes under the great waves of 
carefully arranged black hair; Soledade, 
smaller, and paler, with a thin, rather peev- 
ish face, and, as Mollie noticed when she 
moved, a slight limp. 

“They are good children,” continued 
their father, still giving her no time to 
speak, “but lazy as you will find, I fear! 
Still, they take great interest in languages, 
and ” 

Mollie, in desperation, opened her mouth 
to explain, even at the cost of interrupting. 


78 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


but Mrs. Sullivan came to her rescue. She 
had immediately, on ushering in the visi- 
tors, passed down the saloon to the cabin, 
evidently to look for Guida, and now stood 
on the threshold, looking surprised and 
even a little scared. 

“Miss Moore?” she said. “I can not find 
her. Where can she be?” And then as the 
captain entered the saloon, “Tom, where is 
Miss Moore?” 

“Miss Moore?” said the captain vaguely. 
“Miss Moore? Please take a seat, gentle- 
men.” He motioned to the uniformed func- 
tionaries who accompanied him, and sat 
down between them at the end of the table 
opposite the inkstand and a pile of papers. 

“Yes, Miss Moore,” said Mrs. Sullivan 
in some vexation, “where is she?” 

“Then it is not you?” said the younger of 
the two girls in English to Mollie. “Oh, 
but I am very sorry.” 

The captain had taken up the papers 
which lay on the table. 

“What is this?” he asked suddenly. “ ‘Li- 
cenga ... the steamer Mariana, leav- 
ing Leixoes at eight o’clock on the 22d of 


AMONG HER OWN 79 

November.’ It is past nine now. But you 
have not gone, Miss Mollie?” 

The fact was so obvious that Mollie 
merely stared at him in silence. But Frau- 
lein Hertha put in a word now. “The 
Mariana,” she exclaimed. “That is the 
boat by which your grandmother is leav- 
ing, Donna Maria Margarida. She told us 
so yesterday when we went to say good-by.” 

“The Mariana is out of sight by now,” 
said Soledade. “We saw her leave the port 
as we drove along the road from Boa 
Vista.” 

Mollie felt herself turn pale, while a sud- 
den feeling of forlornness came over her. 
What did it all mean? Where was Guida? 

The captain had opened the letter which 
lay inside the paper and was reading it 
with knitted brows. “Why was this not 
given to me?” he said, as he ended. “It is 
a letter from your grandmother. Miss Mol- 
lie, explaining that since, by the doctor’s or- 
ders, she must on no account miss this boat, 
she begs me to send you off at once in charge 
of the old steward, Saturnino Bandeira, who 
would himself bring me this.” 


80 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Why, of course,” exclaimed Sybil. “It 
was he whom I saw in that second boat just 
as we entered the river. I thought I knew 
him. I have often seen him at Freamunde.” 

“Then there was a second boat,” said the 
captain. “I saw nothing of it, but it would 
seem as if Miss Moore has left in it, and is, 
no doubt, at present on her way to Madeira. 
I can not understand how the mistake 
arose.” 

“If it was a mistake,” said Mrs. Sullivan. 
She remembered the curious, subdued ex- 
citement on the girl’s face as she came to 
fetch her bag. 

“Oh,” exclaimed Mollie. “It must have 
been! I can not believe that Guida — Miss 
Moore ” 

“Is her name Guida, too?” asked Lucy, 
suddenly. 

“Why do you say ‘too’?” asked Mollie. 
“Her name is Guida.” 

“Or Margarida, then. It is the same 
thing, you know. Then after all that book 
I picked up may have been hers — a book 
of Portuguese verse. There was the name 
‘Maria Margarida Moura de Alvarenga’ 


AMONG HER OWN 


81 


on the fly-leaf, and I naturally thought it 
was yours. I had just put it down again 
when she came up, took it up hastily, and 
carried it away into the cabin. I thought 
it rather rude of her to take it so obviously 
out of my reach, even if you had lent it to 
her ; but I suppose now that it was her own 
property.” 

“But why?” said Mrs. Sullivan. “Her 
name is not Moura, and she knows no Por- 
tuguese.” 

“I think she does, and that it is,” an- 
swered Lucy. “I was in my berth just now 
and had managed to open the port-hole a 
little, when I heard the scrape of a boat 
against the side, and a man’s voice inquir- 
ing for you. Miss Mollie, by name. I heard 
a girl’s voice answering: ‘Yes, I am Maria 
Margarida’ and the rest, and took it for 
yours, and was surprised to hear you speak- 
ing Portuguese so easily. It must have been 
hers. Your voices are as much alike as 
your faces.” 

“But you are Maria Margarida, Donna 
Guilhermina’s grandchild,” exclaimed Sole- 


82 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


dade. “Then you are our cousin. Father, 
this is our cousin.” 

She explained matters in a few rapid 
sentences to her father, who had evidently 
not been able to follow the discussion in 
English, and he now turned to Mollie with 
a beaming smile. 

“Then Donna Guilhermina’s loss is our 
gain,” he said taking her hand, “and what- 
ever may be the explanation of the strange 
conduct of this other lady, it will at least 
give us the pleasure of your company, my 
dear little cousin. Welcome with all my 
heart to your father’s land.” 

He shook her hand with great warmth 
and friendliness, while the two girls re- 
newed their embraces. “Nuno,” cried his 
father, “Nuno, come here!” 

Nuno did not respond, and his sister, 
limping toward the door, found him per- 
forming a pas seul with a beaming coun- 
tenance in the narrow passage outside. 

“Oh, Soledade,” he cried delightedly, 
“how nice she is, our new governess. What 
fun we shall have!” 

“She is not our new governess at all,” 


AMONG HER OWN 


83 


said Soledade, and then, laughing at the 
sudden clouding of the radiant little face: 
“She is our cousin, Maria Margarida 
Moura. Come and give her a kiss.” 

Nuno came willingly enough. 

“How jolly,” he said; “it will be even 
nicer to have her for a cousin than a gov- 
erness, because there will not be any les- 
sons, only fun. How delighted Alegria will 
be! Father, please let us go home quick. I 
want to show her to Alegria.” 

“Certainly, my son. If the captain will 
be so kind as to make quite sure that Miss 
Moore has left the ship, there will be no 
reason for our not doing the same. We 
breakfast at eleven,” he went on, turning to 
Mollie, “and even though it takes a certain 
time to get through the Custom House with 
your luggage, we can easily be home be- 
fore then.” 

“Do show us your cabin,” said Mafalda, 
slipping her arm through Mollie’s, “I have 
never been on one of these boats.” 

She spoke Portuguese, using the familiar 
“thou” customary among near relatives. 
Mollie felt, with a sudden leap of her heart. 


84 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


that after all, whatever had happened, she 
was at last in her father’s land and among 
her father’s people. 

But later, when the Custom House had 
been safely passed with very little trouble, 
and she sat in the roomy, handsome motor- 
car beside Senhor Alvarenga, she came back 
to the question which had been puzzling 
her brain all along. How did Guida Moore 
come to be her namesake, and why had she 
taken her place? 

Her cousin looked grave. “As to who 
she is, I can only guess,” he said, “but sup- 
posing her name to be really the same, and 
judging from the resemblance every one 
speaks of, I think that my guess is likely 
to be the true one, she must be Alvaro’s 
daughter. Alvaro was your father’s brother, 
my dear, his elder brother. I remember 
once hearing a rumor of his having mar- 
ried in America. Probably the rumor was 
a true one — it would be just like him to en- 
tangle himself in some such way, and then 
shirk his responsibilities. Heaven forgive 
me for speaking so of the dead, but if this 
young lady is really an Alvarenga, surely 


AMONG HER OWN 85 

she is no other than Alvaro’s daughter. Bon 
chien chasse de race, you know.” 

“She had a very hard childhood,” said 
Mollie. “She told me that she had to work 
for herself almost as long as she could 
remember.” 

“Likely enough. Alvaro died little more 
than a few months after Diogo, your father. 
She would be only about ten at the time, I 
suppose. But that hardly justifies her con- 
duct.” 

“But I was such a coward” said Mollie, 
“always grumbling about the second voy- 
age. Might it not be a thought of kind- 
ness ” 

Senhor Alvarenga smiled. “My dear 
little cousin,” he said, “if I had no other 
proof than that speech I should know at 
once which of the two brothers can claim 
you as his daughter. You forget that 
Donna Guilhermina is a rich woman, and 
has so far as I know, no idea that she has a 
second granddaughter. But if interest was 
her motive, Maria Margarida number two 
might have spared herself the voyage. She 
will, in any case, be rich enough; for For- 


86 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


tuguese law allows the testator only the free 
disposal of a third of his property. When 
direct heirs are present the remainder must 
go to them.” 

Mollie sighed. The motor-car was spin- 
ning along the splendid road which fol- 
lows the curves of the river from the town 
to the sea between the edge of trees on its 
banks and the high gray cliffs on the inner 
side, the same road Mollie had seen from 
the steamer not an hour before. The sea- 
gulls still screamed and swooped over the 
few remaining sardines as they rounded the 
corner opposite the sandy point and passed 
in between the gardens and the row of gay- 
colored houses running their whole length. 
The sea beyond the fringe of palms sparkled 
gloriously in the sunshine, but Mollie saw 
it through a veil which dimmed its bright- 
ness. There must be some explanation, she 
thought, and could find none. 

Then the motor, turning at a right angle, 
left behind it the road which ran now be- 
tween bare fields and the low, rocky heach, 
and entered a broad avenue bordered with 
a double row of trees and stretching end- 


AMONG HER OWN 


87 


lessly ahead into a vague vista of buildings 
with the double towers of a church rising 
against the sky at the extreme end. 

“This is the Avenida of Boa Vista,” ex- 
plained Senhor Alvarenga. “It runs from 
the sea right up into the heart of the city. 
But our house is on the outskirts. We shall 
be there in a few minutes now.” 

The fields, interspersed with woods of 
thin pine-trees, gave way to gardens and 
villas. Presently the car stopped before a 
gate set in a high wall, and a moment later 
Mollie found herself on the steps of a large 
and handsome house, with green-tiled walls 
gleaming brightly in the sun and many 
windows set in frames of glistening gray 
granite. 


CHAPTER VII 

GUIDA WRITES 

M OLLIE sat in a comfortable cane chair 
beside the open window and sunned 
herself drowsily. She had made the ac- 
quaintance of her cousin’s wife, Donna Car- 
lotta, and already felt quite at home with 
that kindly, cheerful lady, who had re- 
ceived her with open arms and helped to 
put her quite at her ease by telling her that 
she knew her grandfather and had been a 
friend of her mother’s as well as a play- 
fellov/ of her father’s. She had been duly 
“shown” by Nuno to his nine-year-old sis- 
ter, Maria da Alegria, and as warmly ac- 
cepted by that young person as she had 
been by her brother. Then after breakfast 
she had spent some time unpacking with the 
help of the girls and the servant Gracinda, 
and put away her things in the old-fashioned 
press and chest of drawers. And now they 
had left her to herself to rest a while — “be- 


GUIDA WRITES 


89 


cause we are going to pass the night at my 
aunt’s house,” Soledade had explained, and 
then, seeing Mollie’s astonished look : “The 
evening, I should say,” she had corrected 
herself hastily. “I am always making that 
mistake because it is 'noite' in Portuguese.” 

And so Mollie sat in the sunshine — they 
had pulled down the blind, but once alone 
she had pulled it up again, looking out at 
the view beyond the trees, the green ex- 
panse with the Atlantic for limit, and then 
back to her own little domain, the room 
which had been prepared for Guida. 

A charming room she found it, with 
its creamy walls and cretonne curtains 
sprinkled over with purple anemones. The 
floor was covered with white matting, and 
contrasted with the heavy, old-fashioned 
furniture in very dark wood, decorated 
with highly garnished rococo wreaths in low 
relief and brass handles and locks, and the 
elaborately embroidered covers and towels 
and sheets in rather uneven but very white 
linen. 

“The flax was grown by our farmers years 
ago,” Soledade had explained, “and then 


90 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


prepared by their wives and spun and paid 
in as part of the rent. Women go round 
and collect the thread and then weave so 
much linen in return. Then after it has 
been well bleached out on the grass in the 
sun, in the long free afternoons in the coun- 
try, the maids used to sit together and work 
these festoons and these endless holes. They 
call it broderie anglaise now, but it is really 
Portuguese, you know,” she had ended in a 
slightly aggrieved tone. 

A vase with three delicately tinted pink 
tea-roses stood on the corner of the dress- 
ing-table, and there were some freshly 
growing green creeping plants in pots on 
the upper edge of the washstand. The sun- 
light lay in a great golden band across the 
white floor and the foot of the ancient bed, 
narrow and none too long, all carved and 
varnished like the rest, and of a hardness 
such as Mollie had never experienced. It 
was more restful in the chair, she had de- 
cided after trying it, and so she sat there, 
half-asleep in the comfortable warmth, re- 
membering with a kind of vague wonder 
that not a week before she had left London 


GUIDA WRITES 


91 


plunged in dreary fog, and still a week be- 
fore that had seen the last of dear old Rath- 
mor, all gray and black in the twilight 
through a veil of falling rain. 

How would Rathmor look under this 
glowing blue sky, she wondered. She tried 
dreamily to picture it, and succeeded so 
well that presently she was walking about 
the Long Bog in the sunshine, and there 
were primroses everywhere and a great 
feathery mimosa, like the one outside, 
which already showed every branch full of 
tiny yellow balls, hung over the deep black 
pool which tradition said was bottomless. 
Then, all at once, as she stood looking into 
its depths, Guida was beside her. 

“Listen,” she said, “they are hammering 
his coffin.” Mollie turned at the sound of 
her voice, started, and awoke ; but the ham- 
mering continued. Some one was knock- 
ing at the door. 

“Come in,” she cried. “Fsntre!” 

The door was slowly opened, and the 
brown, good-humored face of the maid, 
Gracinda, appeared. 

"Disculpa, menina,” she said, and held 


92 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


out a folded note at arm’s length. She added 
some words which Mollie could not under- 
stand. Gracinda tried again; then shaking 
her head, rushed out of the room, and pres- 
ently appeared with Alegria. “Now, me- 
nina,” she said, pushing her forward, “you 
explain.” 

“She says,” translated Alegria, “that a 
man from Leixoes brought this note, a friend 
of the pilot who took out the Mariana. Do 
you want to see him, and what is she to 
say?” 

Mollie took the scrap of paper and un- 
folded it. A few words in pencil were 
signed by the name she had thought her 
own exclusive possession. 

“I can guess what you are thinking,” they 
ran, “but, if you knew all, you would not 
only condemn but pity, too. Mollie, let me 
have just this one chance. More depends 
on it than you can guess. If there had been 
time I’d have been open with you, but there 
was no time. Do not judge me too hardly 
till you know all.” 

Mollie put down the paper. “Thank the 


GUIDA WRITES 


93 


man,” she said, “and I suppose he must be 
paid. How much shall I give him?” 

“Oh, about five hundred reis,” said Ale- 
gria. It sounded a fortune, but the silver 
piece she presently extracted from Mollie’s 
purse for her was only the size and value of 
an English florin. “He will be quite con- 
tent with that and a mug of wine,” she said 
sagely, as she ran off, Gracinda behind her, 
and Mollie was left once more alone. 

She sat down in her chair again, but the 
spell of dreamy drowsiness was broken. The 
sun had shifted, and the air was growing 
chilly, so she shut the window and sat down 
by the table with the note spread out before 
her, her thoughts busy with the writer. 

“If you knew all.” What was the “all”? 
What was the story of that sad, hard young 
life, of which she had had a few brief 
glimpses? 

Mollie thought of her own love-guarded 
days, of the brave memory which ten years 
after his death still earned her a welcome 
for her father’s sake, and could not find it 
in her heart to judge too harshly one who 
neither in the past nor the present had any 


94 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


nearer than herself to hold out a friendly 
hand. 

Again a knock at the door disturbed 
her meditations, but this time it was Sole- 
dade. 

“Come and have some tea,” she said. “It 
is all ready in our room. Dinner is not till 
six, you know.” 

Mollie followed her obediently across the 
hall. The room was on the same floor, but 
the windows looked inland across a varied 
prospect of fields and houses toward the 
town. It was a large and airy and some- 
what bare room, papered in gray and pink, 
with a carpet and curtains to match, and ex- 
cept for the big dressing-table between two 
windows, was furnished almost as a sitting- 
room. A lace curtain hanging across a deep 
recess hid the two narrow beds. Here, too, 
the perfect order and regularity which 
Mollie had already noticed in the drawing- 
room gave at first sight the impression that 
the room was not in use, but on the center 
table the albums had been pushed aside to 
give space for a small tray, on which stood 


GUIDA WRITES 


95 


a tea-pot, a sugar-bowl, some cups, and a 
plate of small round cakes covered with 
white sugar. 

“I forgot to ask you,” said Soledade. “I 
suppose you prefer black tea to green?” 

“Oh, yes, thanks,” said Mollie, taking the 
dainty china cup she held out, and looking 
about half mechanically for the cream-jug. 

Mafalda pushed the sugar-bowl, half full 
of powdered sugar, toward her, but Sole- 
dade had noticed the look. 

“Oh, perhaps you take milk,” she said. 
“I do hope they have some left. I will tell 
Gracinda to go and see.” 

“What will you have, Mafalda?” she 
went on. “Tea as well?” 

“No, thanks; I only want water, agua 
chalada. Gracinda, bring me a glass of 
water, please.” 

Mollie watched with interest the mixture 
she made when Gracinda presently re- 
turned with the glass of water and a small 
quantity of hot milk in a beautiful little 
silver jug. After pouring away about a 
quarter of the water, Mafalda added tea 
to the rest till it became a deep straw color. 


96 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


sugared it to taste, and then proceeded 
to drink it off with every sign of satisfac- 
tion. 

“Try a cake,” said Soledade, who, though 
the younger of the two, seemed to have 
taken it upon herself to do the honors, per- 
haps because Mafalda’s English was too 
shaky for much use. “Gracinda’s mother 
brought these yesterday. It is the sort of 
thing you find in all the country places.” 

“Gracinda comes from quite near your 
grandmother’s quinta," said Mafalda, in 
French, which came more easily to her than 
English. “She has only been here a week 
and was never in a town at all before. The 
first days she wanted to know the name of 
every one who passed the house, and was 
quite astonished when no one could tell her. 
Now, she is getting more used to it, but she 
can not yet understand how it is that we 
can talk gibberish, as she calls it, and yet 
each make out what the other is saying.” 

“She can neither read nor write,” said 
Soledade. “It is not that there are no 
schools, you know. There are schools all 
over the country, and people are bound by 


GUIDA WRITES 


97 


law to send their children to them. But 
the parents say that they got on all right 
without learning and can not spare the chil- 
dren from the fields, and the masters will 
not insist, because the best part of what they 
live on is made up of the presents from the 
parents. Some people, your grandmother 
among them, give prizes every year — so 
much for the best pupils to the children, 
and so much to the masters — so that the 
schools at Freamunde are really schools. 
But Gracinda comes from another parish. 
She is sorry enough now that she has not 
learned. Yesterday she got a letter from 
her noivo — her young man, you know — 
who has gone out to Rio, and she had to 
wait all the afternoon till we came home to 
read it to her and then to write the answer. 
He does not like the idea of other people 
reading his tender speeches, so that he 
writes so stiffly that she was in tears all the 
evening.” 

“Well, I do not blame him,” said Ma- 
falda, looking slightly conscious. “Who 
would like to have one’s love-letters read 
aloud?” 


98 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


She looked at Mollie, as if awaiting her 
opinion. 

“I am sure I should not, if ever I had 
had such a thing,” said Mollie, seeing that 
an answer was expected. 

“Oh, but you do not mean that you really 
never have?” said Mafalda, her own eyes 
wandering with evident pride to the chest 
of drawers which was her own especial do- 
main, and the top drawer of which, by an 
ingenious arrangement Mollie had already 
admired in her own room, pulled out and 
opened down into a neatly fitted and very 
complete writing-table. But Soledade did 
not give Mollie the time to formulate the 
remark which Mafalda was evident eagerly 
awaiting. 

“It is really very tiresome for Gracinda,” 
she said. 

“Well,” suggested Mollie, “the only 
remedy seems to me that she should learn 
now. It need not be a very long business 
if she is willing.” 

“And I could teach her,” said Soledade 
eagerly. “That is an excellent idea. I am 
always longing to get a chance of doing 


GUIDA WRITES 


99 


something really useful. “Gracinda,” she 
went on, turning to the girl, who was re- 
moving the tray; “shall I teach you to 
read?” 

Gracinda’s dark eyes lighted up with 
pleasure. 

“Oh, if the menina was so good,” she 
said, “but it will be such a trouble.” 

“No, not if you take pains. We will be- 
gin to-morrow.” 

“As the menina likes. It is too kind. Let 
it be for the good of the souls of those whom 
God has taken.” 

She moved across the room as she spoke 
and put a match to the gas. 

“May God give us a good night,” she 
said, as the light flared up in the Auer 
burner. 

“Amen,” said the girls. Then, as Gra- 
cinda drew down the blinds and shut 
out the rapidly-falling twilight, Soledade 
pulled out her watch. 

“How quickly the time has gone,” she 
said. “It is past five, time for us to think 
of getting ready for this evening.” 




CHAPTER VIII 

COUSIN LUIZ 

I N THE few minutes of waiting for din- 
ner to be announced, Mollie showed the 
note she had received that afternoon to her 
cousin and his wife. 

“It seems to me that for the present there 
is nothing we can do except what she asks,” 
said Senhor Alvarenga. “The Mariana is 
a slow boat, and will take at least five days 
to reach Funchal, with the weather which 
threatens probably more, so that not even 
a telegram ” 

“Oh, not a telegram,” said Mollie. “One 

can not explain properly, and besides ” 

“A telegram is too public as well as too 
brusk,” put in Donna Carlotta. “Marga- 
rida is quite right. But the next mail does 
not leave for ten days, so we have time to 
think things over. Meanwhile, there is 
the gong, and punctual as usual to the min- 
ute — our second guest, Luiz Valladares 
100 


COUSIN LUIZ 


101 


Gouveia, another cousin, Margarida, my 
dear. Or, if not strictly a cousin, a kins- 
man of sorts, and a very good friend of 
ours.” 

“To tell the truth, it was not necessary to 
introduce us to each other,” said the new- 
comer, a few minutes later to Mollie, when 
they were sitting side by side at the dinner- 
table. “We are old friends, you know.” 

Mollie looked up in surprise, to meet 
the smiling glance of a pair of dark eyes. 
“Oh, you have forgotten, no doubt. It is 
ten, let me see, nearly eleven years ago — 
but we were friends, the best of friends.” 

He spoke English with no trace of an ac- 
cent, but now he dropped into Portuguese, 
a slow, careful Portuguese, which she un- 
derstood without difficulty. “Have you 
quite forgotten, menina Margarida, whose 
busy little hands used to be so clever at find- 
ing the caramels stowed away in her big 
friend’s pockets? Have you forgotten the 
primo Luiz, on whose horse you used to ride 
up and down the avenue of beeches at Frea- 
munde?” 

Mollie had put down her spoon, leaving 


102 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


her soup almost untasted, and was listening 
like one in a dream. Now she turned to 
him with eyes that shone with an eager 
light under the long, dark lashes. 

“Primo Luiz !” she repeated, “and a 
horse, a big black horse — my father’s were 
both gray; yes, and a gun. You used to go 
shooting with him. Oh, I remember, and 
once you brought me a tiny rabbit, alive. 
I used to give it lettuce, till one day a cat 
stole it, a wild cat out of the wood, and I 
cried; I remember.” 

“And I wiped your eyes and promised 
you another the very next time I went shoot- 
ing with your father.” 

“And you never brought it.” 

“There was no next time,” he answered, 
in a low voice, and there was silence be- 
tween them for a moment. But Mollie’s 
mind was busy with the past. 

“There was a garden,” she said, “and a 
hedge of geranium, and a big bush of lav- 
ender with a wall beyond, an old gray 
wall, all covered with moss and tiny yellow 
roses over the top of it — a gray house (not 
ours, because ours was white), with old 


COUSIN LUIZ 103 

carved stones all stained and yellow. That 
must have been your house.” 

“Yes,” he said, “that was my house. That 
was Thelude.” 

His tone was so sad that Mollie looked 
at him in wonder, but Donna Carlotta in- 
terrupted any further questions by an ex- 
clamation of dismay. 

“Margarida, you are eating nothing! Do 
you not like chicken and rice? Cypriano, 
bring me the dish and I will pick out a nice 
bit for the menina. The sea-voyage ought 
to have given you more appetite, my dear.” 

But when she had, to Donna Carlotta’s 
satisfaction, disposed of her portion of 
boiled chicken and its underlying layer of 
saffron-flavored rice, Mollie came back to 
the memories of the past which her neigh- 
bor’s words had roused to full activity. 

“Thelude,” she repeated, half to herself. 
“I remember now. I used to go there often 
and often with my mother to see yours, who 
was an invalid ” 

She paused, afraid to ask the question 
which he answered for her. 

“Yes, an invalid,” he said; “she is that 


104 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


Still, alas. You must go and see her with 
Cousin Carlotta one of these days. She will 
love to talk over old times.” 

“Then she lives here in the town?” asked 
Mollie. 

“Yes,” he answered. “We had to leave 
Thelude. There are no doctors there, you 
know, and, besides, I have my work. We 
have been nearly ten years now in Porto.” 

“Now, Margarida, you really must try 
some of this roast beef,” said Donna Car- 
lotta. Mollie had half-unconsciously re- 
fused the dish which the old servant, Cy- 
priano, had insinuated at her elbow, and 
which, far from being rebuffed by her re- 
fusal, he continued to hold there, while with 
an appealing look, he had drawn his mis- 
tress’s attention to the guest’s empty plate. 
Encouraged now by her words, he carefully 
picked out a tempting piece and laid it on 
her plate, supplementing it with gravy, and 
then, with the air of one who had worthily 
performed a necessary duty, moved on to 
give place to his subordinate with the po- 
tatoes and the salad. 

“And you must try our pudding. Mar- 


COUSIN LUIZ 


105 


garida,” said Mafalda. “It is a new recipe, 
but I think it will be a success. I suppose 
you know how to make all sorts of cakes 
and puddings.” 

Mollie, looking in some surprise at the 
fashionable young cousin she had not sus- 
pected of any skill in puddings, was obliged 
to confess that she only knew how to make 
scones and griddle-cakes. 

“Oh, yes, and trifle with whipped cream,” 
she added, remembering the triumphant 
success of a holiday experiment made by the 
first class at the Dublin convent. 

“Oh, yes ; I know,” said Soledade. “The 
English and the Germans here have it 
sometimes at their parties. But it is dif- 
ficult to get cream enough. The milk here 
is not rich like yours in the North.” 

“No, I suppose not,” said Mollie. She 
would have preferred to continue to talk 
about old days to her neighbor, but now 
that she had got her attention, Soledade 
seemed to be anxious to keep it. She was 
looking almost pretty this evening, Mollie 
noticed. Her heavy hair was parted on 
one side in a less formal but more pic- 


106 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


turesque style than Mafalda’s ; her pale 
blue dress, daintily made and faultlessly fit- 
ting, threw up the pure whiteness of her 
skin, faintly flushed now; her dark eyes 
shone almost too brightly, thought her 
cousin, turning from her talk to Luiz to 
meet their gaze fixed with feverish eager- 
ness on her. 

“Yes, it is very nice, indeed,” said Mollie 
amiably, as she laid down her spoon after 
tasting the pudding — a luscious compound 
consisting apparently of eggs and sugar. 
But, though Mafalda smiled with gratified 
pride, the anxious scrutiny of her sister’s 
look did not relax. There was an expression 
almost of anger on her face, Mollie fancied, 
though when dinner had ended, and they 
all stood up and, after saying grace, turned 
to greet each other, her kiss was even 
warmer than Mafalda’s. 

“A very good evening,” said Luiz, hold- 
ing out his hand. 

''Muitas boas noites” said the children, 
putting up their faces to her for a kiss. They 
had begun with their parents, kissing first 
their hand and then their cheek and receiv- 


COUSIN LUIZ 


107 


ing a caress in return. Mollie was sur- 
prised to see Alegria take her cousin’s hand 
and kiss it too. “My godchild, you know,” 
explained Luiz. “I expect you lost all these 
good old customs in England?” 

“Yes,” said Mollie. A lump had come 
into her throat as the memory awoke of the 
last time she, a little girl like Alegria, had 
held her father’s warm brown fingers to 
her childish lips, one evening at bedtime, 
the last evening of her happy, untroubled 
childhood. 

An hour later, sitting in the back seat of 
the big covered motor-car between the two 
girls, her thoughts returned again to that 
time, trying to detach from its vague mist- 
iness some clearer details of the figure 
which a single meeting had made so fa- 
miliar, that she wondered how she could 
so completely have let the memory of him 
become part of the past. But the effort was 
vain. The age-worn house, the black horse, 
the rabbit, even a dark-haired boy who 
played with her, these she remembered, but 
when she tried to picture him, the face of 
the present-day Luiz blotted out the one of 


108 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

long ago, the pale face, with its sad eyes 
and the heavy mustache half hiding a mouth 
which had surely never had, in those merry, 
far-off days, curves so grave and lines so 
deep. 

“Why, how old can he be. Cousin Luiz?” 
she said, half aloud; but not too low to be 
heard by her neighbors. 

“Oh, I do not know,” said Mafalda; 
“quite old — over thirty, at any rate.” 

“He was twenty-eight his last birthday 
on the twenty-fifth of August,” said Sole- 
dade, with grave exactitude. 

“Then he was only eighteen when I used 
to know him,” said Mollie. “He must have 
changed a great deal. I can not remember 
his face.” 

“Oh, no ; he has not changed much,” said 
Mafalda. “He is always the same, rather 
solemn and serious, but very good-natured, 
and a very useful sort of cousin to have. I 
always feel much safer in the car when he 
is driving. Our chauffeur is sometimes so 
reckless.” 

“Of course he has changed,” said Sole- 
dade. “Donna Guiomar has a photograph 


COUSIN LUIZ 


109 


of him taken about ten years ago, and you 
would hardly know it was the same person 
at all. He has changed tremendously.” 

“Oh, well, I suppose he has,” said Ma- 
falda, indifferently. “I do wish Tia Alcina 
would let us have some dancing, but I sup- 
pose it will be the same thing as usual.” 

The car slowed down as she spoke, and 
took up its place in a file of waiting car- 
riages outside a tall and somewhat gaunt- 
looking house, whose tiled front gleamed 
metallically in the light of their great 
lamp. 

They got out in their turn, and passed 
through a bare and very cold stone hall 
furnished only with an oak bench and some 
bamboos in pots, and then up a handsome 
staircase. The little room where they left 
their wraps was filled to overflowing with 
ladies and girls, all cousins and aunts, it 
seemed to Mollie, catching over and over 
again the words tia and prima, and quite 
unable to remember the names belonging to 
the smiling faces with the dark eyes and 
hair, all alike, it seemed to her in her 
bewilderment. 


110 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


There were more of them in the big sa- 
loon, sitting in groups and trios on the 
heavy damask and gilt chairs ranged along 
the walls. Donna Carlotta led Mollie 
toward the sofa, where their elderly hostess 
sat^ surrounded by a number of ladies of 
her own generation, all in rich, rustling 
silk dresses made high to the throat, but 
serving as a background to the most mag- 
nificent jewels. 

“And this is the little cousin who man- 
aged to lose her boat,” said Donna Alcina, 
to whom Donna Carlotta had explained in 
the way they had agreed upon Mollie’s un- 
expected presence in her house, an explana- 
tion she had to repeat many times that eve- 
ning, when the event in all its bearings 
formed one of the chief subjects of the 
family conversation. 

Donna Alcina looked curiously at Mollie 
as she gave her her hand, as if seeking a 
likeness, and then smiled with some satis- 
faction. 

“She is like her father, after all,” he 
said; “a true Alvarenga, all but the eyes, 
which are too dark a blue. But then so 


COUSIN LUIZ 


111 


were his. Let us hope you are like him in 
other ways too, my dear child,” she went 
on, turning again to Mollie. “You can not 
hope for a finer inheritance,” 

Mollie felt her heart warm with that lit- 
tle glow of joyous pride which had been 
kindled in it more than once that day, and 
which, better than anything else so far, 
kept the homesickness which had tormented 
her on the boat at bay. But, in spite of the 
kindness and warmth with which she was 
welcomed and made at home among the 
crowd of unknown relatives, Mollie was 
glad enough when, a few hours later, in 
spite of protestations on the part of their 
hostess, Donna Carlotta made her farewells 
and carried off her party. Mollie had 
grown tired enough of sitting on her high- 
backed chair between two girl-cousins, 
while one after another went to the piano 
and played or sang, discreetly applauded by 
the group of men who, except for a few 
elders, kept strictly together near the door, . 
and much praised by the older ladies, who 
rarely omitted to reward the performance 
with a kiss. There had been recitations, too. 


112 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


and a childish dialogue in French 
performed by two small grandchildren 
of their hostess. Then there were re- 
freshments — cups of tea and glasses of 
water and of wine carried round by men in 
livery on great silver trays and other trays 
piled high with sweets in colored tissue 
paper much befrilled; and little cakes 
of almonds, eggs, and sugar; and preserved 
fruits. There had been ices, served in the 
same way, but the time had seemed very 
long to Mollie, and she was not sorry to 
make her good-bys all round and turn her 
back on the great bare room, with its chair- 
lined walls, the marble-topped consoles 
covered with priceless porcelain dating 
back to the days of Portugal’s great power, 
side by side with modern German figures in 
colored bisque, and its big center table, a 
mass of flowers, roses and heliotropes and 
salvias. 

“Oh, I do wish we could have danced,” 
said Mafalda, as they sped homeward 
through the darkness. “It would have been 
such fun.” 

“You did not lose your time, at any rate,” 


COUSIN LUIZ 


113 


said Soledade, and with that somewhat 
enigmatic speech subsided again into the 
rather sulky silence she had kept since they 
left the house. 

But Mollie hardly heeded her. Her 
thoughts were too busy with other things — 
with, to be quite exact, the cousin, whose 
strong handclasp as they said good-night 
she still felt in her own, and whose last 
words had been to remind her of her 
promise to visit his mother as soon as 
possible. 

“It will be as great a pleasure to her to 
see you again, priminha, as it has been to 
me,” he had said, with a smile which lit up 
all his grave young face, “and she has so 
few pleasures, you must not cheat her of 
that one.” 

“But it will be one to me, too,” said Mol- 
lie earnestly. “Please tell her so from me.” 

And then they had shaken hands like the 
old friends they were, and the car had 
rushed off in the darkness down the smooth 
straight road which led from the heights of 
the city to the sea. The air was warm and 
a little clammy, and there were no stars. 


114 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“The wind is from the south,” said Sen- 
hor Alvarenga. “We shall have rain to- 
morrow, and, if I am not mistaken, the 
storm which has been predicted for some 
time. If it is half as bad as they say. Miss 
Guida Moore, before long, will, I expect, 
be very sincerely regretting the success of 
her bold stroke of diplomacy and wishing 
herself safe on dry land again.” 


CHAPTER IX 


GUIDA’S STORY 


UIDA Moore had not waited till the 



VJ bad weather came before regretting 
the hasty, half-unreasoned impulse which 
had led her to take her cousin’s place. The 
deed had hardly become irrevocable before 
she regretted it, with a choking feeling of 
remorse and a sick, helpless longing for the 
moment of decision all over again. 

“She is not as stiff as they said,” she told 
herself, walking restlessly up and down the 
deck, almost the only passenger brave 
enough to confront the warm, rough wind 
beating up from the south, and the in- 
creased rolling of the ship. “And I am 
sure she would have been kind if she knew 
— but she has no idea — the only two left, 
she said. Oh, if there had been time to tell 
Mollie, to explain!” 

There had been time enough in all truth, 
had she been able to conquer the cautious 


iis 


116 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

reticence, which, indeed, it had not needed 
Miss Hamer’s careless description of her 
grandmother’s character to impress upon 
her, since her life itself had already taught 
it to her. A dreary life enough it showed 
up, as, pacing to and fro in the gathering 
dusk, she let her thoughts fly back over the 
past years to the earliest memories they 
held. 

They were not, like Mollie’s, of sunshiny 
places and kind, smiling looks, but there 
was some sweetness in them, too. There had 
been little sunshine in the small drab house 
in the dull suburban street of a busy New 
England town, with its narrow yard, where 
a clump of marigolds in a wooden box 
made the one patch of color in the gray- 
ness ; but there had been the warmth of love, 
and there were memories no less precious 
than Mollie’s. There had been hours, quiet 
evening hours, when her mother for a while 
laid aside her perpetual needlework, and, 
taking her on her knees, would draw the 
rocker close up beside the stove, and “be 
cosy.” Guida would never forget the small, 
bare room, with its poor furniture and the 


GUIDA’S STORY 


117 


patch of warm color thrown by the open 
door of the stove on the floor, growing 
brighter as the dusk crept in through the 
window. Those were happy days, though 
she had not known it at the time, waiting 
always as she had been, with a child’s eager 
impatience, for the bright future her 
mother would paint, in those short spaces of 
leisure she allowed herself during the fall- 
ing twilight, the things that would be 
when her ship came home, “when your 
father returns from Europe, my darling.” 

Guida knew now how faint and fragile 
had been the hope which buoyed up the 
brave little mother’s heart during the ten 
long years from her birth, to the day when 
indeed it was fulfilled, though not as they 
had pictured it. It had been a simple ro- 
mance enough, that of her parents — begin- 
ning in a chance meeting at the farm board- 
ing-house between the little school-teacher, 
who was spending a hard-earned fortnight’s 
holiday, and the handsome foreigner, who 
spoke English almost like an Englishman, 
and whose light-blue eyes, which made such 
a striking contrast to his brown skin and 


118 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


black lashes, could speak a language more 
eloquent still. He had come over from 
New York with a friend for the fishing, 
which was worth nothing; but that fact 
seemed to cause him little trouble, since he 
had found a pastime more absorbing for 
the long golden summer hours, which, for 
Maggie Blake, were passed in a garden of 
Eden. But it might have very well ended 
as so many summer romances end when the 
summer is over, with a parting and a little 
cluster of bitter-sweet memories for all re- 
sult, had it not been for the friend. 

A well-meant interference; a warning, 
which was intended to nip the foolish pas- 
sion, and served but to fan its flame ; a some- 
what tactless effort to get the impression- 
able young stranger away before it was too 
late; and to Alvaro Moura’s ill-balanced 
character, what had been at first little more 
than a pleasant interlude became the one 
absorbing object and aim of his existence. 
Three days after his friend’s vain attempt 
to get him to break off his courtship, the 
young Portuguese gentleman, who could 
trace his ancestors back to the warlike 


GUIDA’S STORY 


119 


Gothic barons who had fought the Saracens 
in the valleys of the Minho before the days 
of Count Henry of Burgundy, was married 
in the little Catholic chapel, half a mile 
from the farm, to Maggie Blake, whose 
grandfather could hardly write his own 
name. Not that Maggie knew anything of 
the ancestors, nor the fortune which was fast 
wasting away under her husband’s careless, 
reckless hands. For her in those few brief 
months of a breathless happiness such as she 
had never dreamed of, it was the man him- 
self who filled all her heart, and whom she 
worshiped with an adoring love which no 
revelation of his many weaknesses could di- 
minish, nor even the growing evidence of 
his waning passion. When at last the blow 
she was dreading fell, and he told her that 
business called him home for a time, of 
course, that same love could still blind her 
to the truth and keep her waiting with un- 
shaken trust through the years for his re- 
turn. One effort she had made to commu- 
nicate with him, a year after his departure 
and six months after his child’s birth. She 
had gone then to the Portuguese consul in 


120 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


New York, and asked him if there was no 
means of sending word to her husband, who 
had never written as he had promised, and 
who did not yet know that he had a daugh- 
ter. But the Consul was newly appointed, 
the name “Alvaro Moura,” which was all 
she knew, very little guide in a country 
where the same names are repeated over and 
over again in fifty different combinations. 
He told her to call again, which she did 
more than once, with no other result than 
the making friends with the consul’s old 
housekeeper, who sympathized with her 
trouble and was greatly taken with the 
child. 

More than once she had little Maggie, or, 
as she called her, “Guida,” on a visit, and 
when, with advancing years, she retired on 
her savings and came to live not far from 
her friends, it was to her that the little girl 
owed most of her childish treats, as well as 
her knowledge of her father’s language. 

Yes, there had been happy moments in 
those past years ; gleams of sunshine all the 
brighter for the contrast with the grayness 
which followed. Looking out now and over 


GUIDA’S STORY 


121 


the darkening water, as she paced restlessly 
up and down the deck in the fast-falling 
winter twilight, Guida brought back to 
memory, with a clearness that hurt, the last 
evening she could remember sitting with 
her mother, both working in the hard, crude 
light of the cheap lamp — for she was clever 
enough with her needle at ten years old to 
help keep the wolf from the door. Which 
was lucky indeed, since hope deferred and 
failing strength were making the brave lit- 
tle mother’s struggle a losing one. It had 
been a wild autumn evening, something 
like this one, when she paced up and down 
the deck in the gathering gloom, with great 
gusts of clammy, damp wind, which made 
the windows shake in their frames and the 
door rattle as if a hand were on the latch, 
so that when at last a hand was really laid 
there, it seemed to Guida only one more 
false alarm. 

But not so to her mother. She had heard 
the faint knocking above the storm, and in 
a moment was out in the little hall and had 
flung the door wide. A great gust of wind 
entered, making the lamp flare high, while 


122 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


the glass shattered and fell in fragments 
on the floor. In the sudden glare, the child 
saw a dark, white-faced form, which ad- 
vanced with weary, dragging steps, and 
then a new gust came and blew out the 
light, leaving her in terror-stricken gloom. 

That first glimpse was all she remem- 
bered clearly of her father’s face. After 
that came a confused memory of dismay and 
fear, and a hasty running through the wild 
night for the doctor and their only friend, 
Senhora Luzia, who came hurrying at her 
tearful summons. It must have been barely 
a week, but to Guida it seemed an endless 
blank space, with no limits of day and 
night, before the sick man’s terrible rav- 
ings ended in a silence which was more ter- 
rible still. 

Then Senhora Luzia, who had watched 
day and night by the sick-bed, listening 
with a white face and close-shut lips to the 
piteous cries which she alone could under- 
stand, had taken her by the hand and led 
her into the room where her unknown 
father, whose coming was to have brought 
such happiness, lay white and still on his 



The child saw a dark, white-faced form .” — Page 1^^, 



\ 






4 



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I 


V t 


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I ■ 


I, 







I 



GUIDA’S STORY 


123 


pillow, and her mother, as white and 
hardly less still, sat beside him. With 
trembling fingers she took the bit of green 
box from the jar of holy water to sprinkle 
the quiet figure, and then stooping, kissed 
for the first and last time the cold hand 
upon his breast. 

Guida kept no very clear memory of the 
weeks that followed. Her mother worked 
no more, only sat very quiet and still with 
folded hands in the rocking chair. Luzia 
was with them always ; very kind, but more 
silent than she had been. They were all 
silent, for what was there to talk of now 
that the dream of the future was shattered? 
“But he came back to me in his trouble,” 
Maggie said once, with a triumphant note 
in her weak voice. “He came home to me. 
He knew I would be waiting for him still.” 

“Yes,” said Luzia, “he came back to you 
with his trouble.” 

Maggie did not notice the irony in her 
tone. 

“If only he could have known about 
Guida,” she went on. “I tried to tell him. 


124 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


but he did not seem to understand. You 
will look after her?” 

“Yes,” answered the old lady, “I will 
look after Guida. Have no fear for her.” 

Guida knew that it was on a winter day 
that her mother died, because when she 
knelt beside her, listening to her slow, pain- 
ful breaths, and waiting for the priest, who 
had been the day before, to come and bless 
the second deathbed, she could see through 
her tears the great flakes of snow whirling 
about on the other side of the small win- 
dow-panes. That was the clearest memory 
which remained in her childish brain, half- 
stupefied with grief and dread of the black, 
unknown future. 

But people had been kind. Senhora 
Luzia had taken her home, and for two 
years she had lived with her, busy with 
school and the little household tasks, which 
were all she could do in return for her 
friend’s charity. It was really charity. The 
two illnesses had swallowed up the few hun- 
dred dollars which Alvaro Moura had 
brought back with him, and the small sum 
over from the sale of the furniture Sen- 


GUIDA’S STORY 


125 


hora Luzia had put in a savings-bank as a 
nest-egg for Guida’s future, all she pos- 
sessed beyond the few papers which had 
been her mother’s, some photographs, and 
her father’s pocket-book, empty except for 
a few odds and ends, and a cutting from a 
Portuguese newspaper, which announced 
the death of “Diogo Moura de Vasconcel- 
los Alvarenga,” and invited his relatives 
and friends, in the name of his widow, 
mother and daughter, to attend his funeral 
at the Caza of Freamunde, near Penafiel. 
This the old lady had handed over to her 
on the eve of her leaving for Europe, where 
a place had been found for her au pair in a 
Belgian convent. 

The name had struck her at once, and 
she had asked Luzia if they might not be 
her relatives, who had answered with mani- 
fest reluctance that it was possible — even 
probable, she allowed at last, in response to 
the girl’s eager probing. 

“But then why do you not write to them, 
or ask the consul to?” said Guida quickly. 

“It was not your father’s wish to have 
any communication with his family,” said 


126 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


old Luzia, and had finally to give her 
reasons. 

“My dear, your father is dead. He died 
repentant, and God has judged him, what- 
ever his failings, of which I can not tell 
you anything, seeing that I know nothing 
beyond what he himself betrayed in his 
ravings. But I can tell you that he had a 
reason for wishing to cut himself off from 
his family, and it seems to me that while 
you have strength and energy to make your 
own way, you should respect it.” 

Guida was silenced, but not convinced. 

“My father might have his reasons as far 
as he himself was concerned,” she thought, 
“but not for me. He did not even realize 
that he had a daughter. One day I will go 
to Portugal and see for myself.” 

The resolution had helped her through 
many a dreary, homesick hour in the Bel- 
gian convent, all the more as time went on 
and the death of her old friend left her ab- 
solutely alone in the world. The thought 
of a home and of kin, people of her own 
race and blood, even if strangers and in a 
far-away land, kept always a warm little 


GUIDA’S STORY 


127 


glow in her lonely heart. But the more she 
clung to the thought, the more the consid- 
eration that the reason of her father’s exile 
might be one which would make his daugh- 
ter an unwelcome intruder in the family 
which had cast him out, began to weigh 
with her, till the resolution she had made 
in the first impulse of youth wavered and 
weakened before the fear of losing, by fac- 
ing reality, the dream-refuge which was so 
precious to her in her many dreary hours. 
And, indeed, had it not been for an entirely 
new motive, which suddenly overpowered 
all other considerations, it is probable that 
she would have respected what Luzia de- 
clared would have been her father’s wish, 
and no one would have known in his old 
home that Alvaro Alvarenga had left a 
daughter. 

It was during her second year in Ger- 
many that Guida met John Martyn, a 
young doctor who had come over from 
England to study some special branches of 
science under the well-known German doc- 
tor in whose daughter’s house she boarded 
while giving her daily lessons at the school 


128 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


not far away. The acquaintance, begun in 
the pleasant family evenings, which were 
to Guida a glimpse into a world she had 
never known, soon grew and ripened into 
love — a love into which the lonely girl put 
all the strength of her starved heart, till its 
force and fire surprised her. On the other 
hand, to John Martyn, very clever, very 
poor, and very laborious, the thought of love 
and marriage had lain among the dreams 
which for the present could never be any- 
thing more, till he met, in the pale-faced, 
black-haired girl, whose life had been even 
lonelier than his own, the realization of 
them all. 

With the hope of a new home, the far- 
away Southern one became vaguer than 
ever, till one day, about a year after their 
engagement and six months after he had re- 
turned to his work in London, a letter from 
the doctor roused every hope she had ever 
founded on the project into full activity. 

In the winter, John Martyn, who had 
never been very strong, had had a bad attack 
of influenza, followed in early spring by a 
congestion of the lungs. He had struggled 


GUIDA’S STORY 


129 


all the summer against the weakness it had 
left behind, but now in the autumn his 
worst fears were confirmed, and all the 
symptoms of consumption were showing 
themselves. 

“A long sea-voyage or a winter in the 
South is what they order me,” he wrote, 
“but you know how impossible both are 
under the circumstances.” 

It was then that Guida resolved to act. 
A month later she had concluded the en- 
gagement with the Alvarengas, and was on 
her way to her own country, resolved to do 
what she could by asserting her rights to se- 
cure for her fiance a new chance of life. And 
so, thinking only of him, maddened by the 
sudden slipping away of the chance on 
which each hour’s delay had made her 
count more securely of making a true friend 
of her cousin, she had grasped at her 
opportunity. 

“I have done wrong,” she said to her- 
self, stopping in her rapid walk to stare 
out over the wild, inky ocean, across which 
the furious south wind was beating with 
growing violence ; “I have done wrong, and 


130 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

I am ready to take my punishment. But, 
oh, I want my reward too. I will work hon- 
estly now to earn it. Mollie herself could 
not do more.” 


CHAPTER X 

THE MOTHER 


M OLLIE threw open her shutters with a 
sigh of relief. Once again a glow- 
ing blue sky met her eyes, a deep sapphire- 
blue piled high against the horizon with 
rounded masses of snowy cloud, the rem- 
nants of those which for the last three days 
had been pouring unceasingly their contents 
on to the drenched earth. It had not been 
cold — warm rather, with a damp, clammy 
warmth more suited to a fern-house than to 
human beings ; a misty warmth which 
clouded the mirrors, and made the flaps of 
her envelopes and her stamps all stick to- 
gether with no extraneous aid. They had 
only been out once since the day of her ar- 
rival, on the Sunday to Mass. That had 
been in some ways a new experience for 
Mollie. 

The car had put them down at a side en- 
trance, a narrow door leading to a passage, 
131 


132 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


and a few stairs up which they had passed 
in front of the open doorway of a handsome 
sacristy. Another door opened on their left, 
and Mollie, following the others through 
the narrowest of arches, found herself, to 
her astonishment, emerging from behind 
the richly carved and gilded altar into the 
sanctuary. There were ladies and children 
kneeling all around on the very altar-steps, 
and groups of men standing on either side, 
while a crowd of men and women, mostly 
standing too, filled the body of the church 
behind the altar-rails. A moment later the 
priest emerged from behind the altar in his 
turn, and Mass began. For a few moments 
Mollie felt strange, almost shocked, but the 
feeling passed as quickly as it had come. 
There was an atmosphere of devotion in the 
place. It was not want of respect which 
dictated the crowding round, but rather the 
respectful familiarity of vassals and sub- 
jects who have for generations been at home 
in the palace of the King, and know their 
privileges and customs too well to need any 
severe laws of etiquette. And then one 
felt, knowing that uncounted prayers had 


THE MOTHER 


133 


gone up with uncounted Masses to God’s 
throne from the ancient church, that one’s 
own weak efforts were borne along with 
the rest. Mollie prayed with a devotion 
which had often been lacking to her in a 
neat English church, and the familiar sa- 
cred words and actions, in which the 
friends of the old life and those of the new 
were at one, carried away the last feeling of 
strangeness in a strange land. 

They were all indeed doing their best to 
make her feel at home, and Mollie had al- 
ready grown to like her two cousins. The 
pair interested her greatly. They were so 
simple and unassuming, so flatteringly 
eager to have her opinion on all sorts of 
subjects, in which they evidently consid- 
ered her an authority because she had been 
to Paris and to London. They were so def- 
erent indeed to her judgments, pronounced 
with all the aplomb of one who knows Paris 
from the inside of the convent, and had 
spent three weeks in London in all, that she 
was tempted to take them for examples of 
southern ladies whose education is popu- 
larly supposed to be confined to their cate- 


134 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


chism and the mysteries of the toilet-table, 
till she found that both, though speaking 
neither language quite correctly nor easily, 
had read a large number of French and 
English classics, besides those of their own 
country; that Soledade had a passion for 
serious literature which not all the efforts 
of her mistress at the convent had suc- 
ceeded in inculcating into herself, and that 
Mafalda’s embroidery was a perfect marvel 
of dainty and delicate workmanship. 

“Soledade can do better still when she 
likes,” explained Mafalda, “but she is 
always wrapped up in her books, and 
dreams of how she would like to settle 
things, if she could. You should hear her 
discuss all sorts of projects with Luiz. If 
those two had their will and money enough, 
Portugal would be a bit of Eden. As it 
is ” 

“One can only talk and dream, and do 
nothing,” interrupted Soledade quickly. 
But she did the thing which lay nearest 
to her hand, and the very next day after 
the party gave Gracinda her first reading- 
lesson, which had been a great success. The 


THE MOTHER 


135 


girl had so much natural aptitude that it 
seemed likely she would need little teach- 
ing before knowing how to read. 

“And I who spent days and days learn- 
ing my letters,” said, with a sigh, her col- 
league, the cook, a plump and dark-haired 
person who bore the classical name of 
Herminia. 

“And who does not know them now,” 
added Mafalda in French to Mollie, who 
had followed her to the kitchen to help in 
the making of a new kind of cake. A little 
cousin, who had visited them the day be- 
fore, had not only given them the recipe, 
but a practical demonstration, while her 
mother made her visit upstairs, and it had 
succeeded so well that Mafalda was moved 
to emulation. 

“It is like reading enigmas to decipher 
her accounts. I always make Soledade read 
them, even when it is my week for keeping 
house.” 

Mollie had sometimes wished she had a 
house to keep during those endless wet days, 
when the outside world was shut off by a 
moving gray veil with no break in it from 


136 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


morning to night. But in spite of the wet 
there were passers-by, though infrequent 
ones, whom it amused her to watch. Now, 
it would be a pair of patient oxen, bending 
their long-horned heads under their carved 
and painted Moorish yokes, while their 
driver, walking barefoot beside the heavy 
wagon, which reminded her of an ancient 
British chariot in her history-book, with 
his shoulders wrapped in a rain-cloak of 
straw in superimposed layers like a thatch, 
urged them on with his goad. Now a 
woman, barefoot too, since it is waste of 
good shoes and stockings to wear them in 
the wet, would pass with a basket on her 
head — a basket of fish, perhaps, which she 
announced in loud and persuasive tones: 
“Oh, what rich sardines! Who buys sar- 
dines? Oh, what rich sardines!” Or a red 
bowl, all shining in the rain, full of black 
olives, which she proclaimed in long, 
drawn-out wailing tones, as “Azeitonas, A 
— zeit — 0-0-0 — nasf' 

“There are not many people along this 
road,” said Mafalda. “That is why it is 
more fun living further into the town. One 


THE MOTHER 


137 


can spend hours looking out of the window 
there.” 

“But one does not, surely?” said Mollie. 

“Well, some people do,” answered Ma- 
falda. “They dress nicely and then sit there 
and watch the street and the people who 
pass. Of course, we would not, except at 
Carnival-time, or for a quarter of an hour 
or so, because we have always so much to 
do. But lots of people like it.” 

“There is an old lady up the Avenida, 
who never goes out except on Sunday, but 
she is installed at her window at eight 
o’clock in the morning. I have often seen 
her,” said Soledade. 

“Some people are there late at night, too,” 
put in Mollie. “I remember when we went 
to the party I noticed several girls at win- 
dows here and there.” 

Soledade laughed, and Mafalda, for some 
inexplicable reason, colored hotly. 

“Only when the weather is fine,” said her 
sister. “In wet weather it is not worth 
while.” 

“No, of course not,” said Mollie inno- 
cently, and wondered why Mafalda looked 


138 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


so self-conscious. She had noticed that 
Mafalda was a little depressed these days, 
except indeed on Sunday, when she had 
come home from church in a state of cheer- 
fulness which had lasted till evening. 

But now luckily the rain had stopped at 
last, and Donna Carlotta announced at 
breakfast that she would profit by the sun- 
shine to pay visits that afternoon to the rest 
of the family, and in particular to Luiz’s 
mother, Donna Guiomar. 

“We will keep her to the last,” she said, 
“because she is very lonely, and we can give 
her all the rest of our time.” 

So they set off about three o’clock in the 
motor-car, and for the next hour Mollie 
climbed stairs and saw new faces and smiled 
amiably at ladies with whom she did not 
dare to air her newly acquired Portuguese. 

She was growing a little tired of stiff, 
bare drawing-rooms, furnished in varying 
degrees of richness, but nearly all with the 
same disused air. In more than one the ser- 
vant had preceded them in order to open 
the shutters and pull up the blinds, before 
admitting them into the chilly splendor kept 


THE MOTHER 


139 


carefully hidden from the light of day. But 
to her relief Donna Guiomar’s drawing- 
room was different. 

The house itself was uninteresting enough 
from the outside, one in a long, irregular 
row in a long, dull street, with not even 
the usual balcony to break the flat monotony 
of its narrow front. But inside, once they 
had mounted several flights of narrow 
stairs, the scene changed. The room into 
which they were shown by the old man- 
servant, who looked with fatherly interest 
into Mollie’s fresh, young face, and asked 
politely after her grandfather’s health, ran 
the whole length of the house at the back, 
its three windows opening on to a wide bal- 
cony, full of plants and sunny still in spite 
of the half-drawn blinds. 

The mistress of the house half sat, half 
lay in a wicker chair, between the table 
piled with papers and books, and the 
window, shaded by curtains of old-fash- 
ioned tapestry in soft colorings. Mollie, 
looking eagerly at her, could find nothing 
familiar in the pale, thin features, sur- 
rounded by masses of hair much too white 


140 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


for the still youthful face. But Donna 
Guiomar had a better memory. 

“I should have known you by your eyes, 
my dear,” she said, drawing the girl down 
to kiss her, “such eyes are not easy to for- 
get, even if Luiz had not been so careful 
to refresh my memory for me. But you are 
more like your father than ever now — poor 
Diogo!” 

She sighed, and drew Mollie down to the 
seat beside her, still keeping her hand in 
hers. Her voice was very like her son’s, 
Mollie thought, and her face, when she 
smiled, reminded her of him. But the 
smile faded and the plaintive, weary ex- 
pression which seemed habitual to it, 
clouded it once more as she added: “Those 
were happy times. Dear Freamunde! How 
I should love to see it again.” 

“And so you will, my dear,” said Donna 
Carlotta, heartily, “when you get a little 
stronger. What about this new treatment 
they tell me that you are thinking of 
trying?” 

“Luiz wants me to,” she answered. “He 
has great faith in it. I suppose I must at 


THE MOTHER 


141 


least try it. The doctor sees no reason why 
I should not.” 

Mollie’s eyes wandered, while they dis- 
cussed doctors, to the window, and re- 
mained there, fixed in wonder at the un- 
expectedly magnificent view, the pictur- 
esque heap of red and white roofs, broken 
here and there by the high tower of a 
church or a cluster of green trees, bounded 
by the far-away purple line of the moun- 
tains beyond the Douro, and to the right a 
soft blue line against the fading gray of the 
horizon to mark the sea. Donna Guiomar 
turned from her conversation to follow 
Mollie’s look. 

‘‘You can see still better from the ve- 
randa,” she said. “Mafalda, dear, take her 
outside and show her all our beauties.” 

The view was more extensive from the 
big balcony, and its height above the sur- 
rounding houses gave one a feeling of free- 
dom and fresh air. One felt the air must 
be fresh, blowing in from those misty, pur- 
ple hills, or the boundless blue ocean 
beyond. 

“It had needs be when one never gets any 


142 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


other,” said Mafalda. “It is ten years now 
since she left the house for a day, and for 
the last year or two she has not even been 
downstairs.” 

Mollie looked at her in startled sympathy. 

“It is like being in prison,” she said. 
“What illness is it that she has?” 

Mafalda did not answer for a moment, 
then she shrugged her shoulders. 

“I do not know. No one knows. Some 
people will tell you — no, mother scolded me 
for repeating that. It is certain that she is 
ill — but whether something organic or of 
the nerves, or, rather, of the mind, I can 
not tell you.” 

Mollie looked puzzled. “The mind?” 
she said ; but Mafalda went on : “Ten years 
ago she came up from the country to consult 
a doctor about some trifling ailment. She 
had been delicate and sickly for years. His 
treatment did not satisfy her, and she went 
to Paris. She came back quite changed, 
and no better in health. Almost at once they 
shut their house in the country and came to 
live here. It was a great wrench for Luiz, 
who loves his old home and the life there. 


THE MOTHER 


143 


and who has the greatest taste for all sorts 
of country pursuits. He had studied the 
whole agricultural question, spending a 
good deal of time abroad so as to get hold 
of the latest ideas, and was eager to get on 
with the experiments and changes he had 
planned for improving the land and the 
people. But, of course, every one thought 
it would only be for a year or two till his 
mother got better, and since they could not 
well afford to live in town while he did 
nothing — especially as the French doctor’s 
treatment is a costly one — he got a place in 
a friend’s office, just to go on with. That 
was ten years ago, and things have not 
changed yet, unless that Donna Guiomar 
has grown a little thinner and paler, poor 
thing — and that her son’s best years are 
being spent in an occupation he hates, hide 
it as he may!” 

Mafalda, who had spoken in a low, rapid 
voice, stopped short now, but after a few 
moments’ silence, during which they had 
watched the western sky, all pink and mauve 
in the sunset, she went on: 

“Of course, Luiz would not allow that 


144 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


they are wasted. There are few sons so 
devoted to their mothers. You ask Soledade 

to tell you ” Then she stopped again, 

and turned to Mollie with a smile. “No, 
perhaps you had better not ask Soledade. 
After all, you do not want any one to help 
you to appreciate Luiz; now, do you?” 

“No,” said Mollie. “I have known him 
since I was a child, you know. How bright 
the sky is! It makes one look as red as if 
one were on fire, simply with the reflection. 
And look at those pigeons. What a lovely 
silvery white they are against the rosy pink 
over there.” 

“Yes,” said Mafalda. “I am glad to say 
that we shall have no more rain, at least for 
the present.” 

Mollie found it difficult to be as cheer- 
ful as usual during the rest of the visit. She 
felt her heart beating with an almost intol- 
erable pity for the pale, faded woman, 
whose handsome, cheerful room, with its 
books and flowers and antique furniture 
and rich porcelains and silver, was nothing 
more than a prison cell, and who, besides 
her own cross, had to be helping to make 


THE MOTHER 


145 


the burden of another — a pity which showed 
itself so clearly in her candid eyes when 
she bent to kiss Donna Guiomar good-by, 
that the invalid looked up at her with a long, 
searching gaze. 

“Come again soon,” she said at last, re- 
leasing the girl’s hand. “Soledade here 
finds time to make me a special little visit 
now and again. Next time you come bring 
Margarida with you, Soledade, my dear.” 


CHAPTER XI 

FRIENDS 

M OLLIE sat at her writing-table, the in- 
genious writing-table made out of the 
top drawer of her press, biting her pen 
meditatively. 

Before her lay a virgin sheet of paper, 
and a task which she would have gladly put 
off longer still, had not the inexorable laws 
regulating the mails made it her last op- 
portunity for Funchal. If only there had 
been time to get the answer from her grand- 
father, to whom she had explained the 
whole matter, asking him what she ought 
to do — but that could not come before the 
evening or the next morning, and the post 
went out at five. 

At last, as an encouragement to further 
efforts, Mollie dipped her pen in the ink 
and wrote : “My dear Guida.” 

“That seems rather a commonplace way 
to address her,” she thought, contemplating 

146 


FRIENDS 


147 


the three words with her head on one side, 
“but I can not put ‘you wretch’ or ‘false 
traitress’ or anything else which would be 
more appropriate to the situation, as things 
are.” 

She was interrupted in her meditations 
by a knock at the door. 

“Entre,” she cried, and Alegria put in 
her curly dark head. 

“Are you nearly ready, Prima Mollie?” 
she asked anxiously. “Nuno has nearly fin- 
ished giving his Portuguese lesson.” 

“Giving?” asked Mollie, with a smile. 

“Oh, having,” corrected Alegria, to 
whom this particular correction was no 
novelty. “And I am going to dress now. 
Will you be ready soon?” 

“As soon as you are,” answered Mollie, 
and thus admonished set to work with re- 
newed energy at the letter, all the more will- 
ingly that a brilliant idea had just occurred 
to her. 

“I received your note,” she wrote rapidly, 
“and since, as you say, I can not even guess 
at your motives, I do not wish to judge you. 
But our grandmother must not be deceived. 


148 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


Will you tell her yourself, when you think 
fit? I leave it to you.” 

She stopped, to smile to herself at the 
clever way in which she was putting all the 
tiresome task of explaining off her own 
shoulders on to Guida’s. “I trust you to 
tell her,” she went on. “It will not be so 
hard for you.” 

“And if it is, it is her own fault,” she 
added to herself. Then she went on im- 
pulsively, scribbling as fast as she could. 

“Guida, dear, you might have trusted me. 
I would have done what I could for you if 
I had known. But now I leave it to you.” 

She stopped again. “Is that cowardly or 
lazy of me, I wonder?” she asked herself. 
“She begged me to give her a chance. That 
is a chance ; surely it is not part of my duty 
to denounce her.” 

She turned back to her letter with a sigh, 
and then reflected, more cheerfully. “Why, 
Guida has surely confessed long ago, or it 
has all come out. Anjrway, I can not do 
anything more.” 

She wrote her name, her full Portuguese 
name, across the bottom of the sheet, folded 


FRIENDS 


149 


it up hastily so as to put an end to any 
further reflections, closed and stamped the 
envelope, and then shut up her writing- 
table with great decision. 

Ten minutes later the letter was on its 
way to the post, and Mollie herself walking 
with a clear conscience and great satisfac- 
tion between her two small cousins along the 
sunny avenue toward the city. There was a 
birthday party in the family of a cousin, the 
Castro Azevedos, the children who were 
Miss Hamer’s pupils. Donna Carlotta was 
not able to go herself, and Mollie had 
begged to be allowed to take them. After 
some little demur, their mother had con- 
sented. 

“It is not very far,” she said, “and it is 
really in the country here. I do not know 
if your grandmother would approve, but a 
good many girls do go about now in twos 
and threes, though it is not a general custom 
yet.” 

They found quite a large party of chil- 
dren with mothers and governesses, among 
whom was Sybil Meredith. It was the first 
time that Mollie had met her traveling com- 


150 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


panions since they had landed ten days be- 
fore, and it was very pleasant to be able to 
chatter English again in full liberty, though 
indeed Mollie was making great progress 
in her father’s native tongue. 

“And they nearly all seem able to speak 
French or English,” she said to Lucy, “even 
if it is a little queer at times. Only my 
cousin Luiz speaks really good English.” 

“Yes, he was at school at Stonyhurst for 
some years, I believe, and has many English 
friends. He is very clever, they say. Have 
you seen his mother?” 

“Yes,” said Mollie, “more than once, poor 
thing. I felt so sorry for her.” 

“So do we all,” said Lucy Hamer, 
“though few people know her well now. It 
is such a mysterious illness, too — no one can 
understand anything about it.” 

“What, not even the doctor?” asked 
Mollie. 

“Oh, the doctor 1 I mean the gossips, 
those who like to know all about their 
neighbors’ business. I can tell you, there 
are the most marvelous stories ” 

“There always are,” said Sybil, “once 


FRIENDS 


151 


there is anything the least little bit out of 
the ordinary. For gossip, we are no bet- 
ter here than anywhere else. In any case, 
if her illness is mysterious, to me the great- 
est mystery about Donna Guiomar is her 
patience and the amount of good she man- 
ages to do in spite of her seclusion. Ask 
Soledade to give you a few details.” 

“Oh, she has,” said Mollie. “Soledade is 
very fond of Donna Guiomar.” 

“And now, tell us what you think of 
Oporto?” asked Lucy. “I suppose you have 
not seen very much of it, living as you do 
out there at Boa Vista?” 

“Oh, yes, I have,” answered Mollie. “The 
girls were determined that I should see 
things. They have planned several longer 
excursions as soon as the roads are a bit 
drier. But we have been to the Bolsa, and 
the cathedral and lots of other churches, 
and to see the bishop, and across the bridge 
to Villa Nova, and, of course, in the town 
itself, the Rua das Flores ” 

“So called because there are forty jew- 
elers’ shops in a row,” said Lucy. “But I 
suppose when Don Manuel built it, four 


152 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


hundred years ago, there really were some 
flowers to be seen.” 

“It seems to me that there are flowers 
everywhere,” said Mollie. “It is so strange 
to see so much green in November, and 
those big plants of cosmos, and Japanese 
anemones and chrysanthemums and gera- 
niums and camellias, all smothered in 
buds. . . .” 

“Wait till January, and they are in 
flower,” said Sybil, “and the mimosas and 
violets ever5rwhere, great big purple vio- 
lets, which you can pick and pick and make 
hardly any impression on the beds of them, 
and jonquils. There is no real winter here, 
you know, though it is often cold enough.” 

“I should think so,” rejoined Lucy, “and 
one shivers in the fireless rooms. Have you 
noticed that there are few fireplaces in the 
houses?” 

“Yes, but while the sun is as hot as this,” 
said Mollie, “one can hardly need them.” 

They were walking in the garden, a wide 
garden which spread itself in three terraces, 
one above the other, the lowest edged by a 
wall overhanging the great gray cliff which 


FRIENDS 


153 


bordered the river. The steps which led 
down from one terrace to the other were 
decorated by great palms in pots and over- 
hung with pink ivy geranium and helio- 
trope, the heavy perfume of which mingled 
with that of the sun-warmed brown mold. 
Mollie looked out over the river and the 
pale gold streak which marked the bar to 
the ocean beyond, and sighed contentedly. 
The Mariana had reached Funchal safely — 
that she knew from the shipping news of the 
day before — but after an eight days’ journey 
and continual bad weather. She could not 
feel sorry that she herself had been safe 
among friends rather than tossing about on 
the furious Atlantic. Not for a good deal 
would she have given up these last ten days 
and their experiences — the days she had so 
dreaded, she remembered, looking at the 
two traveling companions, on whose lips 
she had hung when they spoke of the un- 
known into which she was going. 

Her reflections were interrupted by the 
others. They had left her and gone a little 
way along the path to meet a newcomer, 
whom they now brought with them — a tall, 


154 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

high-colored, yellow-haired girl, no longer 
in her first youth, whom Mollie at once 
decided was not her sort. 

“Oh, I know who it is quite well,” she 
said. “I saw you the other day with the 
Alvarenga children on the Boa Vista road. 
You must not think that because we live so 
far out we never know what is going on. 
And what do you think of the place now you 
are here, I wonder, and the natives? Queer 
people, aren’t they?” 

Mollie flushed. “Possibly they are,” she 
said with a smile, though there was an an- 
gry light in her blue eyes, “but you must not 
expect me to give an unprejudiced opinion. 
I am one of the natives myself, you know.” 

“What? Oh, really! I beg your pardon. 
Miss Moore.” 

“But, I say, you know,” she added, “you 
must not mind. I often tell them to their 
faces my opinion of them and their queer 
ways.” 

“To Miss Smith, all ways which are not 
English are queer,” explained Sybil. “Have 
you been having any more tea-parties, 
Dora?” 


FRIENDS 


155 


“No, worse luck. The last was such a 
fiasco. I had it all ready, proper plum 
cake, you know, and thin bread and butter, 
and milk which had not been boiled — they 
were all sure I should get consumption or 
something, because they are so careful to 
boil every drop of milk, you know — well ; it 
was all ready, but then it poured and 
poured. I knew you two could not come, 
and so did not expect you ; but I did expect 
the others who had promised. Only Frau- 
lein turned up, and seemed to think that 
she was doing me a great favor. I assure 
you I could have wept into the tea-pot. As 
it was, the children ate up the bread and 
butter and drank the tea, the cat had the 
milk, and I have been getting through the 
plum cake alone. They do not care for that 
sort of ‘broa/ as the cook calls it.” 

She ended with a sigh. The other two 
laughed, but Mollie felt a stirring of sym- 
pathy with the exile and her unsuccessful 
tea-party. After all, what were golden 
sunshine and air like wine to one whose 
heart was in a grimy little villa in some 
smoky little suburb of London — Miss 


156 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


Smith’s accent proclaimed her native haunts 
— in a cosy, if shabby room, where one shut 
out the fog in the long November evenings, 
and sat round the fire with one’s tea-cup and 
one’s cronies, and gossiped and read the pa- 
pers or the newest penny magazine, and dis- 
cussed sales and insertions and new blouses, 
and was at home! 


CHAPTER XII 

TWO LETTERS 

HE Mariana had made a very bad pas- 



X sage, one of the worst in the Captain’s 
recollection, as he assured Donna Maria 
Margarida during the last dinner of the 
trip. The Captain and Guida had become 
very friendly during the trying days just 
finished, since she, of all the lady-passen- 
gers, was the only one who had courage to 
show up habitually for meals, or on deck. 

“But she had plenty of courage, that 
young lady,” the Captain had remarked to 
the doctor, “and indeed, she needs it, with 
the old lady in the state she is in.” 

“And the old lady may thank her stars 
that she has it,” rejoined the doctor. “If 
it had not been for her granddaughter’s 
continual care and energy, I am afraid that 
this journey would have finished her. It 
was madness to undertake it in her state of 
health.” 


157 


158 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Oh, you know that we often have the 
sea like a duck-pond at this time of year,” 
said the Captain, “and I believe the doc- 
tors were afraid of her wintering in Portu- 
gal. It is pretty damp and cold there at 
times, and she had avoided it for years.” 

“And with good reason, apparently. 
Well, I suppose it was a choice of two 
evils. In any case she owes her grand- 
daughter a debt of gratitude, and the 
young lady’s task is not done yet. It will 
be a case of touch and go the whole winter 
through. And even then ” 

The doctor did not end his sentence in 
words, but the shake of his head with 
which he cut it short was more eloquent 
than they could have been. And, indeed, 
when at last the Mariana dropped anchor 
outside Funchal and they carried Donna 
Guilhermina up on deck, one did not need 
to be a doctor to see how terribly ill she 
looked. There were few traces of the cold 
and stately dame whom Lucy Hamer had 
described to Mollie, in the feeble, fragile 
old lady who clung so eagerly to her grand- 
daughter’s hand, and whose eyes followed 


TWO LETTERS 


159 


her every movement with a wistful affec- 
tion which would have surprised even 
those who had known her all her life — first 
as wife and as mother, and then as a widow 
left without a child. 

“If only I could have had you sooner, 
Margarida,” she said, with a sigh. It was 
the evening of the day on which they had 
landed. The journey from the ship to the 
villa on the slope above and beyond the 
town had been performed slowly and with 
infinite care, the old lady being borne in 
a sort of litter on the shoulders of two of 
her own gardeners, while Guida, who had 
refused a similar conveyance for herself up 
the steep hillside where no ordinary car- 
riage can go, walked beside her grand- 
mother. Now, lying at last in the big, airy 
room from whose windows the eye could 
range far out over the hillside and sea be- 
yond, she turned her tired old head slowly 
on the richly embroidered pillow to follow 
Guida’s every movement as she skilfully 
prepared her potion, her gaze resting com- 
placently on the slight young figure and 


160 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

graceful head, with its crown of raven black 
hair. 

“I have wanted you so,” she went on. “I 
have been very lonely nearly all my life. 
But I had promised your mother that you 
should be educated in her own old schools, 
and indeed your grandfather had his word 
to say, too. But it is my turn now, and I 
must make the most of the time I have got. 
It may be short enough.” 

But Guida, holding the medicine to her 
lips, would hear no melancholy forebod- 
ings. 

“Wait till you have had a good night’s 
rest on dry land, grandmother,” she said, 
cheerfully, “and then we shall see how much 
better you feel. Is it not delightful to have 
a firm floor under one’s feet? Not but what 
even this floor seems a little unsteady — the 
effect of my long trip.” 

“And your weariness, child. You have 
hardly rested since you came on board at 
Leixoes. To-night you must sleep well. 
My old Cacilda will be able to do anything 
that may be necessary, and there are ser- 
vants enough within call. You must rest un- 


TWO LETTERS 


161 


disturbed. Go to your room, Margarida. 
Good-night, child, and God bless you.” 

Guida bent down and kissed the thin 
white hand and then the pale cheek. The 
old lady drew her down and returned her 
kiss, then with an effort raising her hand 
traced a cross on her forehead. 

“God bless you,” she whispered; “the 
last time I blessed a child of mine — it was 
the night before he died — your father, 
child. You used to have his eyes. Godsend 
you have his heart, too.” 

Her voice died away in a whisper. Guida 
stood upright, her face working. For a 
moment her confession burned on her lips. 
But she forced it back. Now was not the 
time. She bent down again and kissed the 
weak hand, and then stole softly from the 
room. 

^ * 

!A’ week later the out-going mail carried 
two letters which had cost Guida more 
hours of anxious thought than Mollie’s had 
taken minutes. The first was in answer to 
that young lady’s own, and ran as follows : 


162 HER FATHER^S SHARE 

‘‘My Dear Mollie: 

“Thanks for your generosity. You might denounce 
me — but you leave me the task of denouncing myself. 
No, I do not mean to be satirical, and I thank you, 
Mollie. I asked for a chance, and you have given 
it to me. Moreover, I hope, I believe, that I have 
not done what I did in vain. I ought to explain more 
clearly. I wish that you knew what love is, Mollie, 
then a word would serve to explain, almost to justify 
me 

Mollie stopped, coloring with vexation, 
when she reached this passage, and laid the 
letter down. 

“Just like Mafalda,” she said, half aloud. 
She had only that morning been engaged in 
a warm discussion with Mafalda on that 
very subject. That young lady, driven into 
a corner by the very trenchant arguments 
with which Mollie, full of the wise teach- 
ing of her convent years, had scouted all no- 
tions of true love which was not founded 
upon the most serious considerations, had 
at last extricated herself by her equally 
trenchant statement that Mollie herself, 
never having been in love, had no more 
authority upon the subject than the blind 
man upon color. 

“They are all alike,” thought Mollie, re- 


TWO LETTERS 


163 


membering her discomfiture. She let 
Guida’s letter slip to the floor as she sat, 
her chin in her hands, staring out of the 
window while she thought the matter over. 

“I have never been in love, certainly,” she 
reflected, “but I do not see how that can 
matter so much. I have a heart like any 
one else. I know how to be fond of people. 
There’s grandfather. Of course he hardly 
counts, nor grandmamma. But there are 
others — the girls at school, the nuns, the 
girls here — Guida, too, in spite of 
her trick, and Donna Carlotta and Luiz’s 
mother ” 

Her face had been clouding even as she 
went through the list. It was all liking, not 
love; all new friendship, not old affection. 
But after the last name it brightened again. 
“And Luiz,” she said, and stopped. Here 
at least there was no doubt. This was old 
friendship and new at the same time — the 
child’s affection awakened from its long 
sleep to flourish with redoubled strength, 
like a lilac artificially kept back and then 
exposed to gentle heat, which forces it in a 
few days into bud and blossom. 


164 HER FATHER^S SHARE 

they need not be so sure that I know 
nothing about it,” she said, looking dream- 
ily out into the blue distance, and then all 
at once a warm blush dyed her cheeks, and 
she hastily turned back to the letter. 

‘‘A word would serve to explain, almost to justify 
me. But I can not write it all — give me a little time. 
I will make my confession to our grandmother first. 
For the moment she is too much upset by the journey 
to bear any shock, however slight, and this I know 
now would be no slight shock. But when I have told 
her, you shall know all. Till then do not think too 
badly of me, and once more I thank you. 

“Guida.’’ 

The other letter, delivered at the door of 
a dingy lodging in Bloomsbury, was longer, 
but hardly more explicit. 

‘‘Quinta das Heras^ Funchal, Madeira. 
“My Dearest: 

“You will wonder at my address, perhaps at my long 
silence, which it will now explain. You will want 
some explanation of my change of plan. You will 
have a dozen questions ready, but I will answer none 
of them till I have told you the kern of the matter, 
as our good old friend. Dr. Sartorius, used to say in 
his German-English. It is he himself who helps to 
make the kern in this case. Just fancy, I had not been 
here two days, when my grandmother’s sudden need of 
a doctor sent messengers in every direction. You must 


TWO LETTERS 


165 


know that I am here with my grandmother, Donna 
Guilhermina. How we met is part of the explanation 
I have to give you one day, but in the meanwhile do 
not forget to address me by the stately name, which 
is my own, and which I wrote for you on the day we 
were engaged in your favorite book of Novalis’ poems. 
Well, the usual doctor was away and the messenger 
came back with one of those from the new German 
Sanitorium of Santa Anna, not half a mile away. 
And who should come back with the messenger but 
Dr. Sartorius himself! You remember that tuber- 
culosis was always one of his pet studies. Of course, 
once he had prescribed for grandmamma there was a 
great scene of recognition and renewal of friendship. 
We spoke of you, and — oh, John, I can hardly believe 
it is true! — he is looking for an assistant for the win- 
ter months. ‘Tell him that the next boat from Ply- 
mouth leaves two days after the mail arrives. There 
will be just time for him to pack his books, and buy a 
straw hat.’ Those were his last words as he left me 
to write to you. Of course you will come, John. It is 
a chance which seems almost too good to be true. You 
will come from the fogs to the sunshine, which seems 
more golden than ever now that I know it will not be 
wasted without doing you any good. I will not write 
any more. The returning mail is the one which will 
bring you. The boat arrives here on the 23rd. Could 
we ever have dreamt of such a Christmas? 

“Yours now and always, 


“Margarida.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


OUR LADY OF SOLITUDE 

A S THE car turned the corner beyond a 
group of trees and then went spinning 
down the steep incline toward the valley, 
Mollie threw back her head and drew a 
long breath of supreme satisfaction. 

“Cold?” asked Luiz Noronha, skilfully 
negotiating the narrow passage between a 
deep rut and the rocky boulders which 
lined the hill road. 

“Cold? No, it is heavenly,” said Mol- 
lie. “I could go on like this for ever. I 
had no idea the country was so lovely this 
side of Oporto, nor that the roads were so 
good.” 

“Oh, they might be better,” rejoined he, 
slowing down to let a couple of fawn-col- 
ored oxen with yard-long horns, driven by 
a diminutive, barefooted girl, pass the car. 
“It is the heavy ox-carts which do the 
damage. This bit is always being mended, 
166 


OUR LADY OF SOLITUDE 


167 


but you see it is the place where cross-roads 
meet, the highway to Oporto, and that be- 
tween Penafiel and Vizella. There are a 
good many quintas along here. In a minute 
or two you will get a view both of Thelude 
and Freamunde.” 

He put the car back at the fourth speed 
as they emerged from between a double 
border of straggling pines into the plain, 
and the long ribbon of road spread out be- 
fore them, all white and smooth between 
its edgings of rough, gorse-sprinkled moor. 
Beyond the moor stretched the patchwork 
of cultivated land on the one hand; on the 
other a line of blue hills rose in the distance 
against the deep turquoise of the sky. The 
air was keen, and sweet with nutty perfume 
of the gorse-blossom. There was a soft 
bloom in the distances, but near at hand the 
shadows of the leafless trees lay sharp and 
black across the road, whose granite dust 
sparkled and glittered as they sped along. 

“There is Freamunde,” said Luiz, while 
at the same moment Mafalda, sitting 
behind, tapped on the glass to call her 
attention. 


168 .. HER FATHER’S SHARE 

Following the gesture of both, Mollie 
looked eagerly at the long white building 
which a turn of the road had just brought 
to view, where it lay on the spur of a hill, 
which here advanced, like a rock into a sea 
of green and brown, into the wide valley 
through which they were passing. 

“Oh, I remember it!” she cried. “That 
is the chapel at the side, and the tower 
where my father had his study, and that 
balcony, high up and almost covered in 
with a trellis, that belongs to my old 
nursery. Oh, I can recognize it all! But 
the courtyard? That must be on the other 
side.” 

“Yes, the road winds round through the 
woods. From here you see the field path 
you used to take to come to Thelude. We 
shall be at Thelude in a moment now. 
Look, there is the garden wall.” 

Mollie looked up as they passed along 
under a high moss-grown wall, over whose 
upper edge hung a ragged drapery of 
green. 

“That is surely the wall where the lizards 
used to run,” she said, as they turned, and. 


OUR LADY OF SOLITUDE 


169 


passing between two massive stone pillars 
supporting a weather-eaten gateway of 
iron, entered the courtyard of Thelude. 

“Welcome to my house, little cousin,” 
said Luiz, helping her down from her seat, 
and then turning to assist his cousins out of 
the covered part of the car. 

Mollie stood for a moment, looking up 
at the long, low stone front of the house. It 
was only one story above the ground floor, 
which seemed chiefly taken up with cellars 
and warehouses of various sorts, as is of- 
ten the case in Portuguese houses. The hall 
door, heavily studded with iron nails, stood 
at the top of a double flight of stone steps, 
whose balustrade was all draped with pink 
ivy geranium. Under the middle of the 
steps opened an archway leading right 
through the house into a smaller courtyard, 
in the midst of which a fountain in a 
granite basin, set round with beds of violets, 
sparkled gloriously in the midday sunshine. 
Just beyond the fountain stood a young 
mimosa-tree in full bloom, looking as if it 
had caught a handful of sun-rays among its 
delicate yellow clusters. 


170 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Like the garden in ‘Alice in Wonder- 
land,’ ” thought Mollie, “the garden she was 
always seeing through the little golden door 
and had so much trouble in reaching. Once 
I needed no key to come here, in and out 
at my will. Now ” 

“So sad, Mollie!” said Mafalda, shaking 
out her skirts. 

“Not cold, I hope?” said Donna Carlotta, 
anxiously. Like many of her compatriots, 
fear of catching cold was one of the anxie- 
ties of Donna Carlotta’s useful and blame- 
less existence. “Soledade would have been 
quite pleased to change places with you for 
a bit if you had mentioned it.” 

“Oh, no, it was splendid!” protested Mol- 
lie, while Luiz, who had stolen a glance un- 
perceived at her wistful face, interrupted 
in a laughing tone: 

“Only hungry, I hope ; as indeed you all 
should be, if you are to do justice to Her- 
culina’s cooking. This way, please. Lunch 
will be ready in less than ten minutes.” 

Mollie liked the dining-room of Thelude, 
but not because of any beauty it might have 
possessed. It was a long, low room, pa- 


OUR LADY OF SOLITUDE 


171 


pered with a frankly hideous paper, repre- 
senting an endless succession of castles and 
bridges in particularly depressing shades 
of brown and gray. The furniture was 
shabby and only old enough to be ugly 
without being interesting. The painted 
ceiling, on which chubby cherubs hovered 
around baskets of fruit, was sadly in want of 
a restoring brush, and the carpet was almost 
threadbare. But, in spite of all that, Mol- 
lie found in the room something of that 
charm of homelikeness which she so often 
missed in the more stately houses she had 
seen of late, with their immaculate order 
and their air of being rather for show than 
for habitation. There was something about 
the place, for all its unfamiliar features — 
the wood-fire burning on the wide hearth, 
the little old servant in her ample skirts and 
bright kerchief proffering strange dishes — 
which brought to her mind the dear old 
room at Rathmor, where her grandfather 
was no doubt at that very moment smoking 
a Sunday-morning pipe, while waiting in 
the company of the parish priest and a few 
more of his cronies for his Sunday dinner. 


172 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


Perhaps it was the influence of the coun- 
try she had in her mind which prompted her 
next reflection; namely that, after all, the 
chief charm of the room was the view to be 
had from out of its windows. There were 
three of these, all looking south, and all 
open to the midday sun and the balmy mid- 
day air. A white rose swung on the end of 
a long stem across the one nearest Mollie, 
and the eye could range right across the val- 
ley to the blue line of hills beyond. There 
were roses on the table, too; creamy tea- 
roses tipped with crimson and mingled with 
a handful of heliotrope in an old blue bowl 
of genuine porcelain. 

Later, after they had explored the house, 
the girls went out into the garden while the 
two men went to look over some new build- 
ings and Donna Carlotta discussed the 
poultry-yard with Herculina, the little old 
servant who had charge of the place during 
the long years of the master’s absence. They 
wanted to see what flowers they could gather 
to take back to Donna Guiomar. 

“How she must long sometimes to get 
back here to the country again,” said Mol- 


\ 


OUR LADY OF SOLITUDE 


173 


lie, looking round her at the wide expanse 
all bathed in the golden afternoon light 
“Ten years — it is a lifetime!” 

“Yes,” rejoined Mafalda. “But ten years 
always in the country would be worse still 
to my mind — though, for that matter, she 
does not much enjoy the advantages of the 
town, to be sure. Soledade, there are far 
prettier roses on the other side of the house, 
you know.” 

They were in the long walk which ran 
along the wall of the garden, overlooking 
the highway. On the inner side the wall 
was only breast-high, while the summer- 
house made a convenient post of observa- 
tion for contemplating the landscape. Ma- 
falda put down the flowers they had already 
gathered on the rustic table in the middle 
of the summer-house, as she made the above 
remark to her sister. 

“Why, I should think that this side would 
be much the best,” said Mollie. “It is the 
south, and more sheltered.” 

“Oh, well, there is heliotrope, and there 
may be a few jonquils, though it is early yet 


174 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

for them,” rejoined the other, though she 
made no effort to move. 

Soledade smiled. “And perhaps a few 
violets near the fountain,” said she. “Come 
along, Mollie, let us see.” 

“But Mafalda?” said Mollie, as the other 
girl drew her away. 

“Oh, she will be all right. Donna Guio- 
mar loves violets, especially those little wild 
ones which smell so much sweeter than the 
big ones.” 

“There goes another motor-car,” said 
Mollie, as they passed round the side of the 
house into the inner courtyard. “Why, it 
seems to be stopping here. Who can it be?” 

“Lots of cars pass along this road, espe- 
cially on Sundays,” said Soledade. She was 
smiling a little, for no particular reason that 
Mollie could see, her usually pale face 
slightly flushed. But that might have been 
only the exertion of stooping over the vio- 
lets. They gathered all they could find — 
it was early yet for there to be many — and 
added to them a good handful of heliotrope 
and jonquils and long-stemmed pieces of 
pink geranium from off the steps before 


OUR LADY OF SOLITUDE 


175 


turning back toward the garden. There 
was a big stone bench set in the shelter of 
a sort of arbor of camellia bushes, just under 
the dining-room windows, and toward this 
Soledade led the way, 

“Let us sit down a minute,” said she. On 
some days her limp was barely perceptible, 
but to-day Mollie noticed that she walked 
wearily and looked unusually pale and sad. 
She would like to ask her what was the mat- 
ter, but in spite of all their amiability and 
genuine kindness she did not feel as yet 
enough at home with the two to venture on 
confidences. So she sat on in silence, bask- 
ing in the genial heat, breathing in the mild 
air, balmy now with the scent of the flowers 
in her hands, and dreamily looking out over 
the landscape all bathed in golden light, 
though the shadows were growing longer 
as the afternoon wore on. Far away, be- 
yond the brown fields and the green ones, 
white against its background of deep green 
with the glowing sapphire above, rose the 
ancient walls of Freamunde, the home of 
her family for a dozen generations. She 
looked at it with a feeling of loving pride. 


176 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


Not so long ago it all had been so remote 
and far off, a mere memory of the past. Now 
it seemed the only part of her life that was 
real. The school-years, even the pleasant 
months at Rathmor, were the dream now. 
She thought of the wet November morning, 
when her grandmother’s letter came and her 
heart had failed her at the thought of going 
among strangers. Strangers — they were her 
own people! The Alvarengas, of course, 
were not near relatives, but Donna Guio- 

mar and Luiz — and then Guida . She 

had felt angry enough with Guida at the 
time. Now she could thank her. Why, but 
for Guida’s trick, she would not now be 
sitting here enjoying the sunshine in the 
garden of Thelude, in Luiz’s old home, the 
place where they had been such good 
friends long ago. She would have missed 
some of the best days of her life. Mollie 
smiled to herself at the thought. Yes, they 
were good days, golden days, full of sun- 
shine and the warmth of friendship, of new 
interests and new affections. Her grand- 
father had been a true prophet. She was 
fast falling in love with this “land of gold 


OUR LADY OF SOLITUDE 177, 

and burning blue,” which, after all, was 
her own. 

“A penny for your thoughts,” said Sole- 
dade, suddenly, and then laughed a little 
bitterly. “Oh, no, I will not waste the 
penny. I can guess them all ; more than you 
guess yourself.” 

“Why, what do you mean?” asked Mol- 
lie, startled and flushing crimson. “You are 
sometimes so mysterious, Soledade.” 

“And you are so very transparent, pri- 
minha, and unconscious, yes, unconscious. 
But never mind. I hate explanations, and 
I am queer, I know — they all tell me that. 
Come, let us take these to join to the others. 
We shall be starting soon, as Luiz wants to 
take us round by Freamunde.” 

“You are sure you do not mind not going 
outside, Soledade?” asked Mollie, anx- 
iously. 

Soledade looked straight into the pretty 
young face turned to hers, her brown eyes 
meeting the blue, black-fringed ones with a 
strange expression in their depths. 

“No,” she said deliberately, “I will not 
mind.” 


178 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“There is another motor,” remarked Mol- 
lie, as they turned into the long walk under 
the over-arching vine-boughs. “How quietly 
it must have come up for us only to hear it 
now.” 

She looked over the wall as she spoke. 

“Oh, I know the car,” she said, “and the 
driver. I see it almost every morning pass- 
ing two or three times up and down our 
road. I suppose the owner lives near us. 
He drives it himself. Do you know him?” 

“Very possibly I do,” said Soledade; “but 
I did not see him just now.” 

“It was too bad of us to leave you lonely 
so long, Mafalda,” said Mollie, joining her 
flowers to the heap which still lay on the 
table as they had left them. But the girl 
only smiled vaguely. 

“Oh, it did not matter. Soledade, have 
you a piece of string? I could not make the 
bouquet.” 

Soledade was already putting the flowers 
together. 

“There are various kinds of loneliness,” 
she remarked, after a silence, as if thinking 
aloud. 


OUR LADY OF SOLITUDE 179 

“But only one Soledade,” said her sister, 
giving her an affectionate caress. 

“Is that what Soledade means?” asked 
Mollie. “I always intended to ask.” 

“Yes, Maria da Soledade, Our Lady of 
Solitude. Mater Desolata, you know; not 
even of Sorrows, but of Loneliness. It is the 
title under which she is honored on the eve- 
ning of Good Friday, in the big procession 
which commemorates the burial of Our 
Lord. The soldiers all walk bareheaded 
with muffled drums, and colors draped in 
crepe, and they carry the figure of Our 
Lord on a bier. Well, they carry a statue 
of Our Lady too — Our Lady most Desolate, 
Our Lady of Loneliness.” 

“What a sad name,” said Mollie. 

“Yes, the name is sad enough,” rejoined 
its bearer, “but the thing itself is sadder 
still.” 

“Oh, I hope you will never know it by 
experience,” said Mollie warmly. 

“Amen,” cried Mafalda. 

Soledade went on putting the half-blown 
cream rosebuds and purple violets together 
in silence. 


CHAPTER XIV 


CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 

is a month to-day since we reached 

X Oporto,” said Mollie. 

“So it is,” rejoined Lucy Hamer. “It 
seems much longer, does it not, Sybil?” 

The three traveling companions, having 
met by appointment on the plea of helping 
Mollie to finish her Christmas shopping, 
had begun the arduous task by settling 
themselves in a sunny window of the tea- 
shop at the top of one of Oporto’s most hilly 
streets, and refreshing, themselves with tea 
and cakes. 

“If things go on as they have begun,” said 
Mollie, “I shall soon feel as if I had never 
been away.” 

“That’s because you really belong here,” 
answered Lucy. “It always takes me about 
three months to get accustomed to the place 
again after a holiday. Everything seems so 
180 


CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 


181 


big and bare and empty; not only the house, 
but the days, even.” 

“That is what I like,” said Sybil, thought- 
fully. “I suppose it is because it is so long 
since I have been in England except for 
holidays, but there I am always unsettled, 
always on the rush, gathering impressions, 
new facts ” 

“And new clothes,” interrupted Lucy. 
“That is one of my chief holiday occupa- 
tions in the intervals of devouring all the 
new books I have been dying to read since 
the last time, and have not been able to 
borrow.” 

“Yes, books and magazines and the the- 
aters — all that helps one to feel rushed. One 
wants the long, quiet hours to think them all 
over, and let them sink in, before one can 
enjoy them properly.” 

“That is all right for serious people like 
you,” said Lucy, helping herself to another 
cake. “I try to get more. I never knew 
how awfully interesting the dullest book 
could be till it was the only thing I had to 
read on a quinta in the Douro. The fatter 
the book and the more numerous the de- 


182 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


tails, the more profoundly grateful I feel 
toward the author. And even when I have 
plenty to read, I do enjoy a nice homely 
English novel, where the family sits cosily 
round the fire having tea and toast, or plays 
tennis in the rectory garden, or walks home 
across fields in the twilight, lingering at 
every stile. Anything exotic and venturous 
leaves me cold. To begin with, I can not 
help wildly envying the bold hero who 
treads the deck of the gallant ship without 
the least qualm of seasickness, and then who 
can get up a proper interest in the swarthy, 
truculent villain with his flashing dark eyes 
and the knife in his sash, when one can meet 
a dozen of him any day one likes to look 
into the street?” 

“Oh, come,” protested Sybil. “ ‘Villain’ 
is a strong word to apply to poor, honest, 
hard-working Ze Povinho, whatever his 
looks may be.” 

“Yes, I know,” said Lucy, “and even his 
looks are not always so fierce as I seem to 
insinuate. No villain ever wore the mutton- 
chop whiskers which he affects, at least in 
the country. But I am right about the 


CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 


183 


Street. Why, one can see something inter- 
esting every time one looks out of the win- 
dow. Only this morning I saw a scene 
which amused me. One of those Gallego 
boys who sell lace, you know those who 
shriek so loudly Rendas up and down the 
streets, stopped just underneath and unslung 
the pack from off his back and took out a 
piece of striped cotton to wipe his hot 
face. To him came another Gallego boy, 
barefoot this one, but selling, by some irony 
of fate, cards of those iron bits with which 
you strengthen the soles of your boots or 
wooden shoes. The first boy stopped the 
second, and began to bargain. At this mo- 
ment another seller came along, a woman 
with a basket of dried grapes on her head. 
'Quern quer uvas?' she yelled. ‘Who wants 
grapes with the sun in them?’ Another 
woman, who was passing with a basket on 
her head containing a fat fowl, alive, and a 
bundle of cabbages, evidently wanted some, 
so the pair of them squatted side by side on 
the curb-stone to look them over. In the 
meanwhile the two boys came up to see what 
was going on ; a lad who was passing with 


184 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

a big framed holy picture came up, too, and 
a girl who was carrying some huge bundles 
of wood. The seller of raisins called a part- 
ner with the scales over from the other side 
of the street, and there was a discussion 
which lasted at least three minutes. Then 
the word Americanos floated up to me, and 
the woman with the fowl got up and went 
on her way. You know many people do not 
like the taste of the American grapes, which 
they introduced to fight the disease of the 
vine, and I conclude she was one of them. 
The others went on their way, too, not at all 
upset at having wasted their time ; only the 
Gallego boy bought his card of bits of metal 
and continued down the street, shouting 
Rend as as loudly as ever. No, I must say 
that there is nothing villainous about the 
people. But for all that, I wish that I could 
have spent Christmas at home.” 

The word recalled them to the serious 
business of the afternoon, and they made 
haste to finish their tea and go out. 

Lucy went to the door while Sybil helped 
Mollie to gather up her change. 

*‘Nao podo ser, santinha,” they heard 


CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 


185 


say as they came up. A very old woman, 
dressed in a tattered skirt and shawl, stood 
holding out her hand. 

“An alms,” she begged, “minhas riccas 
senhoras, a little alms for the souls of those 
whom God has taken.” 

Mollie put a penny into the shaking old 
palm. 

“Let it be for the love of God. May He 
give you health and happiness. 

“What was that you said?” asked Mollie 
of Lucy. 

Lucy laughed. “It sounds poetical,” she 
said. “ ‘It can not be, oh, little saint!’ ‘The 
Lord favor you,’ is often added. And the 
chances are you get the blessing just as well 
as if you give the alms. I expect you find 
the beggars rather a bother?” 

“Well, no,” acknowledged Mollie. 
“There are beggars in Ireland, too, you 
know, and they have a point in common 
with these. They beg, certainly, but rather 
as if they had a sort of right to your charity. 
It seems so natural that, you having and 
they not, you should share. There is a 
brotherly feeling about it that I like.” 


186 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Yes,” said Sybil, “I have felt that. Of 
course, I suppose that proud independence 
would be more admirable; but, after all, 
their point of view is the Christian one. 
And there is something very friendly in the 
sort of understanding that they are giving 
you an excellent opportunity of doing a 
good work. It is not the pride of the Span- 
ish beggar — it is more like the Irish, I sup- 
pose — there need be no false shame when 
we are all of the same household.” 

“And the children,” said Mollie, “the lit- 
tle dark-eyed rogues, the confident way 
that they ask you for a flower out of your 
bouquet or for a half-penny for chestnuts. 
No wonder they want chestnuts! The very 
smell seems to belong to these clear, cold 
afternoons. It must be an almost pleasant 
life, that of the chestnut women, sitting all 
day in their corners, beside their pots of 
charcoal, sprinkled with salt, fanning the 
embers with those queer fans of white and 
pink quills, and turning the powdery, black- 
coated chestnuts in the earthenware jar full 
of holes, till they are soft and sweet and 
piping hot.” 


CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 187 

“And you simply long to buy a handful,” 
added Lucy. 

“Oh, but we do, whenever I am out with 
Nuno and Alegria. The first time I was 
rather startled, not at their proposing it, but 
at Alegria’s producing a tiny embroidered 
handkerchief to carry them in. She seemed 
to think it quite natural, and as she thought 
it proper to retire into the by-lanes to eat 
them, at least I did not protest.” 

They had reached Praga Nova now, the 
heart of the town, a square paved in wavy 
patterns of black and white mosaic and 
decorated with an equestrian statue of Dom 
Pedro IV., the founder of the constitu- 
tional form of monarchy in Portugal, and 
hero of the siege of Oporto. It was more 
thronged than usual this clear, wintry after- 
noon, for besides tbe ordinary groups of 
loungers and business men, discussing poli- 
tics and financial matters, the whole square 
and the streets leading to it were encum- 
bered with country-people, who had come 
in for their Christmas shopping. Some had 
already made their purchases, which they 
carried on their heads in baskets or in patch- 


188 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


work bags. Many were laden with the long 
loaves, which only appear at Christmas time 
for the manufacture of rabanadas — a dish 
said to be of Moorish origin, and consisting 
of slices of bread dipped in new milk and 
fried in a mixture of sugar or honey and 
oil. This, with becalhau (dried cod-fish) 
and sweet rice, forms the principal dish of 
the consoada, the Christmas-Eve dinner, 
which is practically the only meal of that 
day and the great family gathering of the 
festive season. Those who were not busy 
stood about in groups, the women in bright- 
colored kerchiefs and shawls, and the glory 
of gold chains and earrings ; the men, 
mostly burned deep-brown by many years 
of work under the burning sun, resplendent 
in white shirts and gaudy ties, carrying long 
sticks or the inevitable umbrella, and all 
wearing more or less a sheepish expression 
as they paid court to the girls, who seemed 
much less embarrassed than their swains. 

“It seems a very queer way to be making 
love,” remarked Mollie, as they threaded 
their way across the road, past the big 
church of St. Anthony, where an embroid- 


CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 


189 


ered scarlet curtain before the great door 
proclaimed that there was Exposition of 
the Blessed Sacrament within, and up the 
step Rua de St. Antonio, crowned, like the 
street they had just come down, by another 
church. 

“They used to do it in verse,” said Sybil, 
“as some still do, the girl making up the 
answers to the man’s quatrains, while the by- 
standers listen and applaud.” 

“But that is more public still.” 

“Hardly more so than the way their bet- 
ters make love at the window,” said Lucy; 
“the girl, perhaps, on the second or even 
the third or fourth floor; the young man 
gazing up at her from the street, his re- 
marks and hers clearly audible to all 
passers-by.” 

“Oh!” cried Mollie. “Is it for making 
love that the poor things are at the windows 
in the evenings? But how can they expect 
people not to know?” 

“They do not expect it,” said Sybil. 
“Every one knows, but it is a custom of the 
country, and every one pretends not to. 
'After a while the young man either sol- 


190 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


emnly asks for the girl’s hand from her 
parents, or else leaves off coming, and the 
affair is concluded; unless, indeed, she likes 
to put an end to it sooner by sending him 
away or failing to appear herself.” 

“It seems awfully queer,” said Mollie. 
“Why can not they get introduced and talk 
to the girl properly?” 

“Why, of course, they are introduced; 
often they are old friends, sometimes even 
relatives, and may meet often in society. 
But there they have small opportunity for 
any other intercourse than that of looks, 
which are only the first stage of the affair, 
though an important one. At the window 
they can exchange ideas and sentiments in 
peace, if not in comfort.” 

They turned into a big store as she spoke, 
and Lucy, who was in front, interrupted 
Sybil’s explanations to point out its peculiar 
features to Mollie. 

“I suppose it is rather unique in its way,” 
she said, “because it was once a theater, the 
Theater Baquet, which was burned down 
about twenty years ago. Many people per- 
ished — how many will never be known. 


CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 


191 


They are all buried together in the Agra- 
monte Cemetery, under a ghastly tombstone 
made of imitation debris, broken columns, 
twisted music-stands and the rest. I often 
think of the poor souls when I come in 
here.” 

They got through their shopping in time. 
Mollie found it difficult not to feel inordi- 
nately extravagant at the thought of spend- 
ing thousands on the least thing, even 
though the thousands represented reis, and 
a rei was something less than the twentieth 
part of a penny. There was also not much 
of a show of the usual costly or cheap and 
showy futilities which do duty, as a rule, 
for Christmas presents. However, there was 
no want of pretty things in the proper quar- 
ters, exquisitely made gold filigree orna- 
ments, beaten silver, delicate lace and em- 
broidery, miracles of drawn-thread work 
and the rest, and she felt pleased enough 
with her afternoon’s work as she took her 
place in the electric car and was whirled 
home through the growing dusk. 

The other two had to get out before she 
did, their homes lying in a different direc- 


192 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


tion. It was nearly dark when at last she 
got down, a few dozen yards from the house. 
But behind the band of pines along the 
horizon the west still glowed a faint pink, 
fading into lemon, and through the palest 
green into blue, the very colors of mother- 
of-pearl, she thought, standing a while in 
the quiet road to look up into the sky, A 
star or two trembled in the deep sapphire 
overhead; the air was cold and keen, but 
pure and invigorating as spring water. 

“Oh, it is beautiful here,” she said, aloud, 
and turned at the sound of a step behind 
her. It was Luiz Noronha, who had come 
up unperceived. 

“Yes, beautiful,” he said, “Whatever 
else we miss, we have sky and sea, the pure 
air and the golden sunshine — they are 
always ours.” 

“And many other things besides,” she 
said. 

“Yes, many other things besides. I am 
quite content with my share of the world 
this evening. And you, priminha?” 

“Oh, so am I,” said Mollie, looking up 
with a happy little laugh. It was no doubt 


CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 


193 


some memory of her talk with Sybil Mere- 
dith which made her blush so furiously all 
at once when their eyes met. At any rate, 
a sudden shyness tied her tongue till they 
reached the house and turned in at the gate 
together. 


CHAPTER XV 


PAYMENT 

G UIDA put down the opera-glasses with a 
sigh of impatience, and moved back 
from the veranda into the room behind, the 
spacious room in which, on the night of 
their arrival in Madeira, she had helped to 
get her grandmother safely ensconced in 
bed. She had not left it since. She was not 
dangerously ill, said the doctor, only very 
weak and languid, and complete rest was 
the only medicine — rest and freedom from 
excitement of any kind, and good nursing. 
That she got in fullest measure — Guida was 
a born nurse. 

“So unlike your mother, dear one,” the 
old lady had remarked once. “She was 
almost helpless by a sick-bed, as I had occa- 
sion to learn, poor child, poor child. In- 
deed, it was not to be wondered at. You are 
not a bit like your mother, Mollie.” 

194 


PAYMENT 


195 


“No?” asked Guida. “I suppose that I 
am more like my father, then?” 

The old lady’s eyes wandered critically 
over the slight form, and the pale face, 
faintly flushing under her look. 

“Yes,” she said, “and yet not so like as I 
had thought from some of your portraits. 
You have a look of Diogo; yes, a look of 
him — his smile perhaps, and yet not entirely 
that. The sunshine is wanting, the frank 
gaiety which was such a characteristic of 
his. Did you lose that in the cold north?” 

“Oh, it is not always cold in the north,” 
said Guida. “There are sunny days there, 
too.” 

“And there are gloomy ones here, bitter 
days of gloom and sorrow, when the sun- 
shine mocks our grief and the flowers only 
bloom to be made into funeral wreaths.” 

She had closed her eyes then, and 
dropped off into one of the long, half- 
waking spells of drowsiness in which she 
often passed hours, while the girl, slipping 
away after a moment, had fallen to the 
nervous pacing in which she spent most 
of her leisure, up and down the veranda, 


196 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


with its view of the sea to the north, whence 
was to come the reward for her deception. 

And now at last the morning had arrived. 
The ship was due in a couple of hours at 
latest, and Dr. Sartorius had himself set 
off to meet the traveler and bring him 
ashore. He was to lodge at the Sanatorium, 
of course, and besides helping the doctor, 
to attend seriously to the business of his 
own health. 

After casting a look at her grandmother, 
who still lay asleep, Guida stepped out on 
the veranda again, and took up the glass. 
This time she held it to her eyes longer than 
before, and her hand began to tremble a lit- 
tle. Surely she was not mistaken. There 
was a speck on the horizon which had not 
been there the last time she looked, a pennon 
of smoke, perhaps, or the funnel of a ship. 
Even as she watched, shaking with eager 
excitement, the stain grew and grew, till at 
last there was no possibility of error. It 
was surely the mail, the boat which would 
bring John Martyn from the fogs of London 
to the golden sunshine of the South, from 


PAYMENT 


197 


danger of death back to health and happi- 
ness. 

“What day is it?” asked Donna Guil- 
hermina the next time she went in. She had 
awakened refreshed from a better sleep than 
usual, and was less languid this morning. 
Then when Guida told her of the coming 
of the ship: 

“There will be letters for both of us, I 
expect. For you one from Rathmor, direct 
this time, for me a business letter from Lon- 
don, which I am awaiting with some inter- 
est. One is never quite rich enough, and 
you will be the one to profit in the end. 
You will be something of an heiress, my 
Margarida, one of these days, for all I have 
will be yours.” 

“Not for a long time, I hope,” answered 
she, and then after a moment, summoning 
up courage to seize the opportunity. “Have 
you no other relatives at all, then?” 

“No, none near enough to count. You 
and I are the only Alvarengas of Frea- 
munde left, child.” 

“We two alone? And so my father was 
as lonely a child as I?” 


198 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


There was a silence. Guida had turned 
away while she asked her question, busying 
herself with the bottles on the table. But 
from where she stood the bed was clearly 
reflected in the glass, and it seemed to her 
that the old lady had paled a little. The 
silence grew oppressive. She struggled to 
find something else to say, some careless 
remark to destroy the effect of premedita- 
tion in her words, but her lips were dry and 
the lump in her throat choked her. Then, 
after a pause which seemed endless, Donna 
Guilhermina spoke. 

“Why do you ask me that, Margarida? 
Have they told you? Your mother, per- 
haps? Oh, no, she would not have told. But 
you know that your father had a brother?” 

Guida turned and faced her. “Yes,” she 
said, “so much I heard.” 

“And no more? Well, it was enough. 
Your father had a brother — and he is dead.” 

“But suppose he left a child?” 

Donna Guilhermina had closed her eyes 
as if to ward off further questioning. Guida 
would not let the chance slip. This time 
she could see the effect of her words. The 


PAYMENT 


199 


old lady half raised herself, and said, with 
a return of the old imperious manner, 
which Lucy Hamer had once described: 

“Margarida, come here.” 

Then, when the girl had approached re- 
luctantly and stood beside the bed: “Tell 
me,” she went on, laying a thin, withered 
old hand on the girl’s cool young one, “you 
have heard something; you know some- 
thing. What made you ask me that?” 

For a moment Guida hesitated, but there 
was something compelling in the look in the 
keen dark eyes, and it was impossible to 
keep silence. 

“Yes,” she said slowly. “I heard that 
Alvaro Alvarenga had married in America, 
and that he had left a daughter.” 

“You heard — but never mind how. Sup- 
pose your information is correct. Why do 
you speak to me of her?” 

“She is your grandchild, too.” Again 
she paused and again the compelling old 
eyes made her continue. “You spoke of an 
inheritance. She ought to have her share.” 

For a moment the keen eyes searched her 
face, as if to probe to her very soul, then a 


200 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


look of infinite contentment and joy stole 
over the proud old countenance, and the lips 
softened into a smile of which Guida would 
never have thought them capable. 

“I see that Diogo is not altogether dead,” 
said his mother proudly. “You did right to 
speak, child, and I shall not forget what 
you tell me. One day you will understand.” 

She loosened her hand she held, and let 
herself sink back on her pillows. Guida 
stood for a moment in bewilderment, then, 
all at once, she understood. The blood 
rushed to her cheeks. She took a step for- 
ward. Oh, that was more than she could 
bear! All that was true and honest in her 
rose up against the deception. The look 
of proud contentment seemed to sear her 
very soul. She would speak, come what 
might. She would confess the truth. 

And then, as she opened her lips to speak, 
loud and clear from the port below rose 
the shriek of the siren. The mail had ar- 
rived. She stopped short. Now, when the 
reward was at hand, was now the moment? 
In one glance she saw all that it would 
mean. No, she must win forgiveness and 


PAYMENT 


201 


secrecy from her grandmother before John 
knew anything. And the truth he must 
never know. That she had done it for him 
would be no excuse, rather a greater wrong. 
She could imagine the scorn in his honest 
eyes. No, he must profit, but he must never 
know. 

“No, no; it is not too late. Of course 
not!” said the old German doctor, when 
she waylaid him on his way down from the 
hotel to the Sanatorium late that evening to 
make him tell the truth about his patient, 
whose thinness and hollow eyes had alarmed 
her, and who was now luxuriously resting 
in his cheerful room, full of renewed hope 
for the future. 

“No, it is not too late,” repeated the old 
doctor, “though it is perhaps none too soon. 
Those fogs of London are no sort of thing 
for a weak chest.” 

“But now you are not deceiving me?” 

The doctor looked paternally down at the 
pale face raised to his. Guida was stand- 
ing just inside the low wall of the quinta, 
which on that side bordered the road run- 
ning down from the hotel. It was not the 


202 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


first time she had come out thus in the dark 
under the stars to ask the doctor a question 
or give some scrap of information about her 
grandmother, who had taken such a fancy 
to the ponderous, fatherly old German, that 
she had kept him on as her own doctor. 

“Now, now, can you not trust an old 
friend?” he said. “John is weak, and his 
lungs are certainly attacked — you see I hide 
nothing. But with care there is no reason 
why he should not grow strong again. Not 
strong enough, perhaps, to risk again a doc- 
tor’s life in London; but it does not seem 
as if that would be altogether necessary.” 

“No, doctor, I hope not,” said Guida, 
though with the memory of the morning’s 
scene a sharp pang of shame made her blush 
even in the dark. 

The doctor nodded cheerfully. “I 
thought as much,” he said. “Well, well, all 
the better. Good luck to you both. And 
do not be afraid. There is plenty of life in 
him yet, and this climate will, please God, 
help to keep it there.” 

Guida said the words over to herself as 
she hastened up to the house, through the 


PAYMENT 


203 


avenue paved w^ith little white stones over 
which the moon threw a black lace tracery 
of palm-leaves. 

She paused at the top of the walk to look 
out over the panorama around her, the hill 
slopes set here and there with a cluster of 
lights, the infinite expanse of sea, the jeweled 
vault above, where the stars quivered and 
burned with a fiery radiance never seen in 
northern skies. 

She gave a sigh for the exquisite beauty 
of the scene, and then turned away with a 
little shiver. There was a shadow between 
her and heaven, a weight which bore her 
heart down, as sorrow and loneliness and 
hardship had never had the power to do. 

“But I can not be sorry,” she said to her- 
self. “I can not, if it saves John’s life. Oh, 
God, I will suffer, I will take my punish- 
ment, but do not let me have cheated and 
lied in vain. Let me have my payment, 
too.” 


CHAPTER XVI 

MAFALDA'S SECRET 

I T WAS Christmas morning. Mollie rubbed 
her eyes sleepily as she realized, by the 
loud and joyous voices of the children at 
the door, that it was time to get up. She 
glanced at the little clock by her bedside, 
then sat up with a feeling of guiltiness, for 
the hands pointed to a quarter past ten. 
Then she remembered that her religious 
duties were safely accomplished and that 
she had not stolen the privilege of sleeping 
late. 

It had been a most beautiful and devo- 
tional ceremony, that of Midnight Mass, 
or rather Masses, for all three had been 
said one after the other, in accordance with 
ancient privilege, without a break between. 
They had set out about half-past eleven for 
the house of that elderly cousin, in which 
Mollie had assisted at her first evening party 
in Portugal. There was as large a gather- 
204 


MAFALDA’S SECRET 


205 


ing as on that occasion, consisting as before 
of relatives in every degree of nearness. The 
chapel, not large, but perfect in its every 
detail, from the antique tortoise-shell and 
ivory crucifix to the silver extinguisher for 
the candles, was crowded all over its kneel- 
ing space by the richly-dressed crowd, the 
ladies all wearing the black lace mantilla 
of which the use out-of-doors has all but 
died out in Portugal. Communion had been 
given during the Middle Mass, and after 
the third, the beautiful little figure of the 
Child, taken from the Crib, was handed by 
the priest from one to another, who kissed 
the tiny feet. A little later, supper or the 
reveillon, in no detail different from a ball- 
supper, had been served, and then they had 
hastened homeward through the quiet 
streets, patrolled only by the mounted 
couples of the Municipal Guard, looking 
like dark ghosts in the cold light. 

“Have you remembered the sweets, 
prima?” asked Alegria as the pair came in, 
their hands full of violets. 

“Boas festas, prima, these are for you,” 
said Nuno, separating a big bunch from the 


206 


HER' FATHER’S SHARE 


rest. “The others are to put in mother’s 
slipper, like we always do. And here are 
your letters.” 

“May I have the stamps?” asked Alegria, 
perching herself on the edge of the bed, 
“But Nuno wants the Funchal one.” 

Mollie yawned luxuriously, sniffing at 
her fragrant bunch of great Princess of 
Wales violets. Funchal seemed very far 
away and vague this golden morning. 
Surely Guida was not having so pleasant 
a Christmas as she! 

“Boas festas, and thanks,” she said. “The 
sweets are in the silver net bag your sisters 
gave me. I could only get a few ; every one 
wanted some to take home to the children. 
I will give you the stamps later. These 
flowers are surely not all out of the garden?” 

“Oh, no; we buyed them at the Anjo 
market,” said Alegria, her mouth full of 
caramel, “after Mass. We went to nine 
o’clock at Carmo, you know, the one where 
the Municipals go, and they play the music 
all the time, and present arms at the Eleva- 
tion. We like that one best, Nuno and I.” 

“But to-day there were three Masses,” 


MAFALDA’S SECRET 207 

said Nuno. “Every one hears three to-day. 
And in the second one they play the pipes, 
to make the shepherd’s music. It is awfully 
pretty.” 

It was only after a leisurely toilet that 
Mollie set to work to read her letters, and 
even then she left the Funchal one to the 
last. It had occurred to her that there would 
probably be some message from her grand- 
mother, summoning her to Madeira, per- 
haps, the last thing she wished for. It 
would be almost as great a wrench now to 
leave Oporto, she felt, as it had been in 
the beginning to leave her old home in 
Ireland. 

But there was no message in the letter 
written a week before Christmas — from 
which she gathered that Guida had not yet 
found the occasion of making her confes- 
sion. For the rest, it contained, besides 
some good wishes, a short explanation of 
Guida’s conduct, too short, thought Mol- 
lie, reading the account, which brief as it 
was, had cost her reticent cousin more effort 
than she guessed. 

“John Martyn,” said she when she had 


208 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


read it through a second time. “John! 
There are much prettier names than that. 
Poor Guida! No wonder she hardly 
minded what she did. But it would have 
been much simpler to have told me straight 
out. I would have asked grandmamma 
first thing, and there would have been none 
of this double dealing. I feel as if she had 
really played me a good turn, for I am as 
happy as can be. Yet it does not seem fair 
to our grandmother, who has always been 
so kind.” 

This aspect of the question haunted her 
with something of the feeling of a neg- 
lected duty, till, after dinner, she had an 
opportunity of talking it over with Luiz, 
who had dined with them, as he generally 
did on more festive occasions, to avoid the 
solitary dinner at home. It was years since 
Donna Guiomar had been able to sit at the 
table. 

After dinner they were in the habit of 
gathering in a small drawing-room open- 
ing out of the larger one, which was used 
only on state occasions, and out of which, 
on the other side, opened Senhor Alva- 


MAFALDA’S SECRET 


209 


renga’s study. As often happened he be- 
took himself there almost immediately after 
dinner, while Donna Carlotta settled her- 
self comfortably in an arm-chair by the 
fire and the young people gathered round 
the lamp-lighted table at the other end of 
the room, ostensibly to play a round game 
of cards. But as often happened also, espe- 
cially of late, Mafalda quietly effaced her- 
self almost as soon as they had settled down, 
and Soledade, opening the piano, began to 
play softly to herself. The two children 
soon wandered off to the passage outside to' 
try their new balls, so that Mollie and Luiz 
were practically alone. 

The young man listened in silence to her 
explanation of her difficulty. 

“I do not see what you can do,” he said, 
when she had finished. “If Donna Guil- 
hermina is to be spared all agitation — and 
I can imagine how it would agitate her to 
know that Alvaro’s daughter was beside 
her.” 

“Why? Alvaro was her son just as much 
as my own father.” 

“True: he was even her favorite son for 


210 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


many years, so much the favorite that some 
people thought the difference was too 
clearly marked to be fair. But not Diogo 
himself. Of all Alvaro’s admirers, and they 
were legion, he was one of the most sin- 
cere. Alvaro was one of those children 
whom every one spoils, they say, one of 
those handsome, captivating boys, who fas- 
cinate high and low without any effort on 
their part. Diogo was of another stamp, a 
quiet, sturdy little fellow, staunch as steel, 
always cheerfully anxious to do his best, 
but neither very brilliant nor very spark- 
ling — only reliable and honest to the core.” 

“You knew them both?” 

“Alvaro I knew only as a child knows 
a man, but Diogo, though he was ten years 
older than I, was my dear friend, one of 
those friends whose influence helps to shape 
a man’s character, and whom one never 
loses. Death only seals the bond and makes 
it unbreakable.” 

“You make me jealous,” said Mollie. “I 
never huew my father. I have nothing of 
him but a childish memory.” 

“And his blood in your veins, his quali- 


MAFALDA’S SECRET 


211 


ties in your heart. Why, little cousin, some- 
times it seems to me that Diogo’s self is 
looking out of those blue eyes of yours. It 
was just such eyes he had — a sailor’s eyes, 
far-seeing and clear. The sea was in his 
blood. The same roving spirit which in 
Alvaro turned to a restless desire for change 
and excitement, in him was a passion for 
the salt water, the sea, on which you know, 
long before Britain dreamed of its queen- 
ship, we Portuguese were at home. And 
in him, his mother did not oppose it. As 
long as she had Alvaro at home, the second 
son might wander if he wanted to. It was 
not that she did not love him, you under- 
stand. There was no shadow between them. 
I do not think that Diogo ever felt a shade 
of bitterness at the preference given to his 
brother. He had been brought up to the 
same worship his mother lavished, and it 
came natural. Later when Alvaro went 
wrong — I never knew the details, and in- 
deed they were hushed up, and he hurried 
out of the country as speedily as might be — 
and Diogo was summoned home, then I 
know he had a hard struggle to go through. 


212 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


His profession was very dear to him, both 
of itself, and for the chance of serving his 
country. But he never grumbled. No one 
ever guessed, I think, what it cost him to 
give up all thought of a career in the navy 
and settle down as a country gentleman. It 
was not till later, when he helped me with 
a private cross of my own, that I got a 
glimpse of what his own fight had been. 
And by then it was over. He had found 
unexpected happiness in his new life, when 
he met your mother. I can just remember 
their wedding. A pair of children, people 
called them, and indeed your father was 
barely twenty and your mother only just 
eighteen. But they were made for each 
other. Some deeds of virtue get a reward 
even in this life, and I know that Diogo 
tasted true happiness.” 

“But it did not last long,” said Mollie. 

“No, it did not last long. Death came 
in the full tide of health and happiness.” 

“I never knew how he fell ill,” said Mol- 
lie. “Do you know what illness it was?” 

There was a moment’s silence, then Luiz 
answered : 


MAFALDA’S SECRET 


213 


“No, I left him perfectly well. I was 
hurried back from Oporto to find him dy- 
ing. There was only time to press his hand. 
He could not even speak. But he died 
peacefully, with the same simple courage 
with which he faced each trial of his life. 
Your mother was brave, too, though her 
heart was broken. But Donna Guilhermina 
was never the same again.” 

“I suppose in the end mothers all love 
best the children they lose,” said Mollie, 
musingly. “But she still had one son left.” 

“He died about the same time, though 
no one knows exactly when or where, except 
his mother. She never mentions his name. 
And no one knew or guessed that he had 
married and left a daughter.” 

“Poor Guidal” said Mollie. “She has 
had a dreary life. I can not help feeling 
more sorry for her than angry with her.” 

“And I,” rejoined Luiz, “far from feel- 
ing angry with her, on the contrary owe 
her a debt of gratitude, a double debt. Can 
you guess why, little Mollie?” 

He said the last words in a lower tone, 
bending toward her. Looking up, she met 


214 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

his eyes, those dark eyes in which she was 
growing accustomed to see the look of sad- 
ness replaced by something very different 
when they rested on her. The quick blood 
rushed to her cheeks, but she was spared 
the trouble of finding an answer by Sole- 
dade, who suddenly ended the dreamy, slow 
piece she had been playing with a great 
chord which rang through the silent room. 
It woke Donna Carlotta from the peaceful 
doze into which she had fallen over her 
French magazine. 

“Oh, Soledade, what a noise!” she ex- 
claimed, sitting up and looking round. 
“Mafalda, where is she?” 

“Here I am, mother,” said the young 
lady, entering the room through the cur- 
tained doorway which shut off the inner 
and larger drawing-room. A breath of cold 
air hung around her, and her eyes were 
very bright under her dark lashes. There 
was, moreover, a color in her cheeks which 
made her look positively lovely, Mollie 
thought. She was staring at her in surprise, 
when Mafalda slipped into the chair be- 


MAFALDA’S SECRET 


215 


side her, and catching her hand under cover 
of the table, gave it an ecstatic squeeze. 

Soledade took up the cards which had 
lain neglected since the beginning of the 
evening, but at that moment Senhor Alva- 
renga called Luiz from his study to come 
and look over some papers. He got up at 
once and made his farewells, knowing by 
experience that his cousin’s talks over the 
scientific questions in which he was pas- 
sionately interested were lengthy ones. 

There was a smile in his eyes as he bade 
Mafalda good-night and pleasant dreams. 

“The same to you. Cousin Luiz,” she said, 
with a mischievous emphasis, and was an- 
swered with a boyish chuckle which seemed 
to Mollie to come straight out of the long- 
ago days they had been reviving together. 

But Mafalda had no time to waste over 
any but her own affairs. 

“Soledade,” she said, once the three were 
alone, “you need not have played so loud — 
not that it matters much really. I was 
already getting afraid of his catching cold. 
To-morrow he is going to papa’s office dur- 
ing the afternoon, and then as soon as he 


216 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

allows it — next week, I hope — I shall be 
pedida” Then seeing Mollie’s look of 
blank puzzlement. “Asked for, you know, 
in marriage.” 

“But by whom?” 

“By whom?” It was Mafalda’s turn to 
open astonished eyes. “Do you really mean 
you do not know? And I was admiring 
the clever way you hid it. But, of course, 
you know. You have seen him often on the 
road outside, and at church, and at Aunt 
Alcina’s and several other places. Why, 
you even danced with him once. And I 
nearly quarrelled with him because he said 
he thought you so pretty until he made up 
by saying that you talked all the time about 
me.” 

But still Mollie shook a bewildered head. 
Sybil Meredith’s explanations, joined to 
one or two details which now came to her 
mind, convinced her easily enough that Ma- 
falda had a love-affair, but with which of 
the young men who greeted them with bows 
and smiles in the street, and asked for dances 
in the few small parties they had been to 
she was quite unable to say, till all at once 


MAFALDA’S SECRET 


217 


she remembered the incident of the motor- 
car at Thelude, and the face of the driver 
she had since been introduced to. 

“Oh, I know,” she said. “It is Vasco Le- 
mos de Gastello, who motors so much and 
so well. 'And are you really going to marry 
him ?” 

Mafalda nodded beamingly, “I know 
it will be all right with papa, and his 
family is all right. They are relatives of 
mamma’s brother-in-law. Mamma knows 
about it, of course, though I have never 
told her. Every one always knows these 
things, the minute a man looks twice at a 
girl. Why, last night at supper, several 
people asked me when you and ” 

She stopped short. Mollie’s look of as- 
tonishment was belied by her burning 
cheeks, but Soledade, standing behind her, 
had turned deathly white. Mafalda got up 
suddenly and put an arm round her sister, 

“Soledade, my Soledade,” she whispered, 
“if only one could share happiness!” Sole- 
dade returned her caress with a convulsive 
hug, then pushed her gently away. 


218 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

“There,” she said, “mother is looking at 
us. Go and tell her all about it. Mollie 
and I are going upstairs to bed.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


JOHN MARTYN IS CURIOUS 

G UIDA was living in a dream of happi- 
ness, a fragile dream, from which 
at any moment a chance word, the sound of 
a cough, a thought, even, would rouse her, 
but to which, by reason of its very fragility, 
she clung the more desperately. And, in- 
deed, though as far as the older invalid 
was concerned, matters remained station- 
ary, the mild air, steeped through and 
through with sunshine, was working won- 
ders with the younger one. The old doc- 
tor rubbed his hands with satisfaction at 
every sign of his colleague’s returning 
energy. 

“I knew this place would do you good,” 
he said. “How can it be otherwise? What 
self-respecting microbe can live in this 
air? It makes even an old fellow like me 
feel quite brisk again.” 

219 


220 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

“But it does no good, apparently, to your 
patient up at the Quinta das Heras,” said 
John. “Guida tells me that she continues 
as weak as ever.” 

“Oh, I never said that it would cure old 
age, else there would he no standing-room 
left in the group, and Portugal’s financial 
difficulties would vanish by magic. No, 
no.” 

“She is not so very old.” 

“Not as years go, perhaps, though she is 
not young. But our hearts are only made 
to bear so much fatigue, you know, and if 
they are over-burdened in one way or an- 
other, well, their energy gives out before 
its time.” 

“She has had great troubles, then?” 

The old doctor nodded. “She has had 
a sad life enough, if one can believe the 
stories they tell about her here in the 
island. She married young, quite young, a 
man whom she loved deeply, and for a 
time they were ideally happy. But not for 
long. There is a strain of adventurousness 
in the Alvarenga blood, which made them 
among the boldest of those old adventurers 


JOHN MARTYN IS CURIOUS 221 

who sailed the unknown seas, when your 
ancestors and mine — or mine at any rate — 
were living peacefully in some little walled 
city in safe seclusion. But it is less useful 
in modern times, and it drove this lady’s 
husband to chafe at home life and home 
duties before his marriage was a year old. 
But the birth of her first son consoled her 
for much neglect on her husband’s part, and 
she had her reward for her patience — of a 
sort. He came back from his lawless wan- 
derings at last and she forgave him. An- 
other son was born and then, when some 
sort of happiness might have been expected, 
the husband fell ill and died, all in a few 
weeks. That was hard enough, but not yet 
the hardest, perhaps, for her heart was 
wrapped up in her children, especially the 
eldest, a clever, fascinating boy, just like 
his father. Too like, for when he reached 
the age for it he followed the same courses, 
and even worse, and in the end had to leave 
the country. The other son, on all accounts 
his very opposite was doing his best to make 
up for his elder’s conduct, when he, too. 


222 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


died suddenly, almost mysteriously, leaving 
only his little daughter.” 

John had listened attentively to the 
story. Knowing from Guida that she had 
been born in America, and had so far 
never seen her own land, he concluded that 
she could not be the daughter mentioned. 
She must, therefore, be the child of the 
prodigal, which would account for her 
isolation from her family. For the rest, 
he was still quite in ignorance of how, 
having gone out to Oporto as a governess, 
with only a vague hope of finding her 
father’s family, she came to be installed in 
Madeira as the granddaughter and heiress 
of one of the richest ladies of the island. 
So far he had been too busy with the de- 
tails of his new life, too intoxicated with 
the novelty and the beauty around him, to 
press for the details, which she had prom- 
ised to give him one day. But the doctor’s 
story had excited a sudden curiosity, a 
vague uneasiness even, for which he could 
imagine no reason, and he resolved to 
question her on the next opportunity. 

It came that same afternoon. 


JOHN MARTYN IS CURIOUS 223 

Guida had deserted the terrace as a re- 
sort for her hours of leisure, which she 
spent now in the long walk at the bottom of 
the Quinta. At the end, where the wall 
turned at an obtuse angle, some one had 
built, in former days, what the Portuguese 
call a mirante. The Arab word described 
very well the deep embrasure, heavily 
barred and closed by heavy wooden shut- 
ters, which, when opened, gave a splendid 
view over hillside and ocean, to say noth- 
ing of the quiet road which ran below, 
deeply bordered on the side furthest from 
the wall with dusty blue-green cacti, and 
on the nearer side rising to within some six 
feet of the curved iron bars. In the first 
days of his stay, John Martyn had rebelled 
against the necessity of following the cus- 
toms of the place, and instead of walking 
freely into the villa, speaking only in what 
might seem a clandestine manner to his 
promised wife. He was a man who carried 
his honesty and his hatred of pretence to 
a degree almost fanatical in its intensity. 
But the old doctor, who knew more of the 
customs of the country than the newcomer. 


224 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


showed him that while it was impossible to 
speak to Donna Guilhermina, his frank- 
ness would only place the girl in a false 
position. Besides, it was not easy to see 
anything particularly clandestine in con- 
versation thus carried on in the view of the 
whole countryside, so to speak. 

John had given a grumbling submission 
and turned his walks in the direction of the 
mirante. When it was closed, he would 
merely pass on and explore in some other 
direction; when open, he knew that Guida 
was in the neighborhood. 

This golden afternoon, when the sun, al- 
most too oppressive, made the date on his 
newspaper seem a mockery, and foggy Lon- 
don a mere nightmare of the past, he found 
Guida already waiting for him when he 
reached the mirante. 

“I can stay quite a long time this after- 
noon,” she said, “because my grandmother 
has sent for a lawyer to talk over some busi- 
ness. How I wish we could go for a walk 
together. But it would scandalize the 
whole countryside. You see I am sup- 
posed to be quite Portuguese.” 


JOHN MARTYN IS CURIOUS 225 

“And yet you are half of the most inde- 
pendent people in the whole world. Does 
not your American blood rebel against 
such restraints?” 

A shade passed over her face. 

“Not under the circumstances,” she said. 
“You see I am getting really fond of my 
grandmother, though I have known her so 
short a time.” 

“Blood will tell,” he said sententiously. 
From all I hear, the affection is mutual. 
Tell me — remember I know nothing of 
your meeting — was she not surprised to find 
that she had a second granddaughter?” 

“A second?” Guida turned pale, but re- 
covered herself with an effort. “Who told 
you that she had another?” 

“Why, the doctor. At least I gathered 
as much from his story of Donna Guilher- 
mina’s two sons.” 

“What did he tell you?” asked Guida. 
It cost her an effort to speak calmly, and 
yet in spite of the fear which made her 
heart beat so wildly that it seemed as if it 
must choke her, there was a feeling of re- 


226 .. HER FATHER’S SHARE 

lief, too. If only she could speak out and 
tell the truth, and breathe freely again. 

John repeated the information the doc- 
tor had given him. 

“So, as you told me you were born in 
America, I concluded that you are the 
daughter of the son who left the country 
and that you have a cousin.” 

“Quite right, I have — a most charming 
girl, too, and an important person in the 
strange little drama of my finding my fam- 
ily. I told you it was quite a story. But 
first of all, John, tell me. My father — I do 
not know what he did, but I fear it was 
nothing honorable. Does it not make any 
difference to you — what he did?” 

John looked up at her in surprise. 

“Why, no. You are not your father. If 
you had been dishonest and dishonorable 
— but that is nonsense.” 

“You do not believe in heredity, I see.” 
Guida’s voice was faint. How could she 
ever confess? He would surely cast her 
off. 

“Let us distinguish,” said John, with a 
smile. It was his usual formula. How 


JOHN MARTYN IS CURIOUS 227 

often, in their interminable talks on every 
subject under the sun, had she heard him 
use it. “Let us distinguish. If by hered- 
ity, you mean the passing on of vices, bad 
habits, diseases, no. We all have our own 
souls, our own personalities. But if you 
mean tendencies, taste, predispositions, the 
thousand shades which make one person- 
ality differ from another, yes, to a certain 
extent. But since every one person is a 
product of two other personalities, the one 
may so modify the other as to counteract 
almost any tendency.” 

“Yes, I know,” said she. “The sons of 
the worst men are sometimes saints.” 

“Yes, but that argument does not prove 
much, because the mothers of saints are 
very often saints, too. And besides, there 
is the question of grace to be considered in 
that connection. But I want to hear your 
story. That is much more interesting than 
any argument just now. No matter what 
your father was, you are the girl whom I 
love just because of your straightforward 
honesty and frankness. Why, the very 
thing which first attracted me to you was 


228 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


the unfeminine straightness of your sense 
of duty, the complete absence of those 
small subterfuges which some people find 
charming, but which I hate. How, then, 
can I fear that you may have inherited 
your father’s weaknesses?” 

“I will tell you how it happened,” said 
Guida, almost interrupting him. Perhaps 
the courage to tell the whole truth would 
come as she went on. “When you left me 
on the deck of the Guadiana,” she began, 
and went on to tell him of how she had 
watched him out of sight, and then de- 
scending to the cabin, had caught on the 
very threshold of the door her own name 
applied to another, who could only be her 
cousin, a suspicion confirmed by the read- 
ing of the address on the box of china, the 
address which corresponded with the name 
on the newspaper cutting which she had 
found in her father’s pocket-book. She 
went on to tell him some of the incidents 
of the voyage. 

“And then when we reached Oporto — ” 
she paused for a moment. 

“Well,” he said, “you told her who you 


JOHN MARTYN IS CURIOUS 229 

were, I suppose? I wonder you did not 
tell her at once.” 

“I ought to have done so. I wish I had, 
but I did not like to. I felt afraid, be- 
cause of my father. Well, then — ” 

Suddenly she stood back from the grat- 
ing in the attitude of listening. 

“They are calling me, John. That is old 
Cacilda’s voice. "Menina, O menina, O 
Senhora Donna Margarida!’ I must go. 
Mollie was afraid of the journey, else she 
would probably have come. I am a good 
sailor, so I came with our grandmother in- 
stead of her. And when I got here Dr. 
Sartorius told me — but I wrote you that. 
Au revoir, John, I must go!” 

She bent down hastily, their hands met. 
A second later she had turned away, and 
was hurrying down the long path toward 
the house. John followed the graceful 
white-clad figure with his eyes, till at the 
angle of the path she turned and waved 
him a farewell with her hand. Then he 
turned away from the mirante, and pur- 
sued his way down the dusty road toward 
the sea. The vague uneasiness, which was 


230 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


haunting him since the morning, had rather 
increased than otherwise. 

“She is not the same,” he said to him- 
self, walking with bent head between the 
bordering hedges topped with dusty cacti. 
“Can it be that fortune is already chang- 
ing her, my frank, fearless Guida? She 
will be rich, very rich, they say, and I — ” 
He shook off the thought, but it buzzed 
round him for all that, paling the sunshine, 
and clogging the joyous beating of his 
heart. For the first time he felt the sense 
of obligation in place of the loving grati- 
tude with which he had accepted her in- 
tervention in his life; for the first time, a 
shadow had fallen on his love. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

mafalda’s engagement 

G UIDA found the old servant, Cacilda, 
waiting for her on the steps of the 
terrace. “The Senhor Notario is leaving,” 
she said. “The Senhora wishes you to see 
him. He will, perhaps, take some wine 
and biscuits. I will tell Jacintho to pre- 
pare the tray.” 

Guida knew the notary, having met him 
once or twice before, when he came up to 
talk over business matters with Donna 
Guilhermina. He was a fatherly old man, 
who had greeted her always with a smile 
and a cordial handshake. This afternoon, 
to her surprise, he bowed ceremoniously, 
and his face remained grave. 

“Will you not take something?” she 
asked. “A glass of wine, or water and 
wine, like last time?” 

She had herself prepared him a glass of 
water tinted with port, and sugared to 
231 


232 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


taste, which she had found to be a favorite 
refreshment among her countrymen. 

“Nothing, thank your Excellency,” he 
said. Guida started at the term. There are 
infinite shades of ceremony in the Portu- 
guese manner of address, from the fa- 
miliar “thou,” employed only with chil- 
dren and intimates, to “your excellency,” 
and “your grace,” which, far from being re- 
served for ambassadors and dukes, is ap- 
plied to every one. Moreover, you address 
your shoemaker on an envelope as “most 
illustrious” and every lady is “most ex- 
cellent.” But Guida had so far been 
"menina” for the old man, and the stiff 
term, as well as the look of cold disappro- 
bation in his eyes, chilled her. 

“Nothing at all, servant of your excel- 
lency,” he added, and bowed himself out. 

“What can it mean?” she asked herself, 
half aloud. 

“He is not pleased, and no wonder,” said 
old Cacilda, carrying away the tray. “The 
menina should have kept silence. It is not 
Senhor Diogo, God speak to his soul, who 
would have acted thus.” 


MAPALDA’S ENGAGEMENT 233 


Guida found Donna Guilhermina a little 
excited by the notary’s visit. 

“It had to be done,” she said. “I only 
did what I ought. And yet, Margarida, I 
can not help feeling sorry you told me.” 

“I did it for the best, grandmamma,” 
said Guida, greatly puzzled. But she had 
little time to think the matter over. Toward 
evening, the old lady’s agitation increased, 
and it became evident that she was very 
feverish. Guida sent at once for Dr. Sar- 
torius, who gave her a cooling medicine. 
But in spite of it, the fever did not abate. 
She began to stir restlessly and after a while 
to talk. There was no coherence in her 
speeches, and only a word or two here and 
there which one could understand at all, 
but it was easy to guess what thought filled 
her troubled brain, for the names of her two 
sons, Diogo and the one she had not men- 
tioned for years, came back again and 
again. Once the girl, watching in great 
anxiety during the long slow hours, caught 
a phrase which seemed to make sense, 
though its meaning was beyond her. 

“He forgave him, Moira, I know that he 


234 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

forgave him — but how can his mother for- 
give?” 

“Moira” was, she knew, Mollie’s mother, 
the young wife who had so soon followed 
her beloved husband to the grave. The 
words haunted her with a sense of mystery, 
deeper and darker than any she had guessed 
at. But she would not let her thoughts 
dwell upon them, till at last the invalid 
ceased her mutterings and fell into a 
troubled sleep, and the old servant, whom 
she had sent to rest for a few hours, com- 
ing in, relieved her of her vigil. 

On entering her own room, Guida threw 
open the shutters and leaned out for a space 
into the dusk. There was as yet no sign of 
dawn, though in an hour it would be full 
day, but only the biggest stars still showed 
in the steely sky and there was a peculiar 
hush as of expectancy over sea and land. 
On the slopes below a pale light gleamed 
here and there among the trees, showing 
where the early risers were already astir, 
but there was no other sign of life in all the 
wide expanse. It seemed incredible that 
so soon the day would be here, the cheerful 


MAFALDA’S ENGAGEMENT 235 


day, with its golden light and long, sunny 
hours. The girl turned away with a shiver. 
No sunshine could pierce the heavy cloud 
of fear and misgiving that was gathering 
in her heart, and was yet perhaps easier to 
bear that the clear knowledge behind. No, 
let her doubt while she might, and mean- 
while there Was sleep, blessed sleep, which 
for a space meant forgetfulness and peace. 
Hastily undressing, she crept between the 
sheets and a few minutes later had indeed 
ceased to fear and worry. 

It must have been very much at the same 
hour of this clear, cold morning that Mol- 
lie stood, too, at her window, after a sleep- 
less night, and watched the clouds faintly 
flushing to pink and gold in the east. But 
there were no anxious forebodings in Mol- 
lie’s heart, only a delicious expectancy, and 
instead of the echoes of a sick woman’s de- 
lirious mutterings, the gay strains of a 
waltz rang in her ears. 

The day before had been the one on 
which her cousin’s hand had been asked 
for by his parents, for their son, Vasco Le- 
mos de Gastello, and graciously accorded, 


236 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


as had naturally been settled beforehand, 
by her father and mother. The ceremony 
had been followed by a grand dinner, 
which united the two families, and that 
again by a gay little dance, which had 
lasted till within an hour of dawn. Then, 
when all the guests had departed, there had 
been a long family chatter over the details 
of the affair, and when the girls had been 
finally routed off to bed by their mother, 
another long confabulation of the three 
young people in their own bedroom. Mol- 
lie felt that she was now entirely admitted 
to their confidence. She had learned all 
the details of the long courtship, beginning 
with the admiring glances cast by Vasco at 
Mafalda on the Passeio Alegre at Foz. 

“Ah, the Passeio Alegre,” said Mollie. 
She herself had found them very dull, those 
interminable walks up and down the public 
promenade opposite the row of bright-col- 
ored villas which bordered the sea, down 
at Foz, the “mouth” as its name indicates 
of the river. It had occurred to her more 
than once, and she had even ventured to 
express the thought, that it would be far 


MAFALDA’S ENGAGEMENT 237 


more interesting to walk on the further 
side of the garden, where there was not 
only nothing like such a crowd, but a beau- 
tiful view of the sea, of which nothing more 
than a glimpse could be obtained from the 
Passeio. 

The girls had at once acquiesced with 
their usual amiability, and they had made 
the round past the palm-tree and along the 
sea-wall. But when they reached the end, 
she found that, intentionally or otherwise, 
their steps led them back to the Passeio 
again, the “Delectable Promenade” as 
Lucy Hamer translated it, and so she had 
said no more. Now she understood the se- 
cret charm of the narrow space where one 
could only move at foot-pace up and down 
between the road and the gardens, because 
of the crowd. 

“For a while I never returned his looks,” 
continued Mafalda, “but one day I heard 
something about him, something really nice, 
a kindness he had done for a friend, so next 
time I just let him see that I knew he was 
there and then of course it went on. After 
a while he got himself introduced, though 


238 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


by then I knew lots about him, and we 
danced together whenever we could. But 
the worst of it is you can not talk much 
during a waltz. It is not like in England, 
where you can sit out. That would not be 
allowed here. But he began to pass the 
house very often, sometimes in his car — I 
knew the sound of his siren — and sometimes 
on horseback. Motors are very useful. 
Once we had a breakdown right out in the 
country and he came along and took mother 
and me on to the next village and then sent 
back the chauffeur to help father.” 

“That was a lucky chance, his happening 
to pass,” said Mollie. 

The two sisters exchanged glances. 

“Yes, it was lucky,” said Mafalda. “Well 
of course, he had begun to write almost 
from the first, and then there is the tele- 
phone, which is very useful.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Mollie, with conviction. 
It had taken her a very short time to get 
accustomed to the use of that instrument, 
which she found an old-established, wide- 
spread, and much utilized institution in the 
town, and after the first awkwardness had 


MAFALDA’S ENGAGEMENT 239 

worn off to imitate her cousins and enjoy 
long talks through it. She had the addi- 
tional advantage that by making use of 
English, she could express her feelings 
more freely than they, who having to use 
the language understood by all, had some- 
times to have recourse to various ingenious 
subterfuges to keep their meaning sacred 
to the one at the other end of the wire. 

“Then,” continued Mafalda. “I let 
him come here. But not very often, not 
every night. Some nights, you see, we 
were not at home ourselves. And now you 
know the rest. I know father likes him, 
and mother is awfully pleased, really, 
though she will cry like anything on my 
wedding-day. But she likes Vasco, too, 
and he is simply in love with her, and in- 
deed with the whole family. He is so 
pleased to have brothers and sisters at last, 
as well as a noiva” 

Mollie had listened attentively and with 
great interest, though not with any view of 
profiting by the experience thus acquired. 
She knew that if any day she had to tell 
her love-story, its beginning would be very 


240 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


diflferent from that of Mafalda. Its begin- 
ning would date back, far back to the days 
of her childhood, when every memory she 
could conjure up was somehow intertwined 
with the presence of a dark-haired, laugh' 
ing boy, who petted and played with her, 
and whom she had lost with the old life, 
but found again with the new, a living link 
with the beloved dead past and the best 
part of the present. As to the future, it 
was vague as yet, but golden — like the rosy 
dawn, all glowing with the sun as yet un- 
seen but soon to rise above the horizon. 

Mollie shivered, too, as her cousin had 
done when she turned away from the win- 
dow and sought her neglected bed, but it 
was not with any apprehension — rather 
with the luxurious shiver of expectation 
and a little sigh of utter content. Soon the 
sun would rise upon another golden day of 
pleasant intercourse and ever-ripening 
hopes, perhaps even upon their fulfilment! 


CHAPTER XIX 

GUIDA AND JOHN MARTYN 

** T) UT you will tell me, doctor, if you 
J3 think that there is really no hope?” 
It was Guida who spoke, a white-faced 
Guida, with eyes red with much watching 
and many tears. The old doctor shook his 
head reprovingly. 

“There is always hope,” he said, “always. 
But I will not hide from you that the old 
lady is in a very dangerous state. If I did 
not know that she had nothing to trouble 
her, I should say, moreover, that its cause 
lay more in the mind than the body. But 
what wearing anxiety can she have, and 
what agitation? Or did you perhaps tell 
her of your engagement? I can speak for 
John, you know, if she makes any great dif- 
ficulty. And as far as his health goes, he 
is making a splendid recovery.” 

For a moment Guida’s tired face bright- 

241 


242 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

ened, but the cloud returned almost at 
once. 

“Yes, I know,” she said, “though I have 
only seen him for a few minutes at a time, 
since that day the notary came, and she 
fell ill. You will explain to him that I 
really can not leave her?” 

“Oh, he understands. He is not unrea- 
sonable.” 

“No,” she said, but not joyfully. It was 
surely not fancy that John seemed hardly 
sorry that their interviews had been so 
short in the last ten days, any more than 
it was fancy that there was a shadow be- 
tween them, something too vague to define 
and yet unmistakable. 

“But I told her nothing of John,” she 
continued, “so that can not worry her.” 

“Well, whatever it is that oppresses her, 
no doubt she will feel happier now she has 
sent for her confessor. At any rate she has 
saved you a very delicate and yet necessary 
task, by asking for him herself. And as 
far as her worldly affairs go, those she has 
already set in order, I believe, as far as the 
law allows her liberty of action.” 


GUIDA AND JOHN MARTYN 243 

“How do you mean, doctor?” asked 
Guida, the notary’s coldness coming back 
to her memory. “Is she not free to do as 
she likes with her own?” 

“Not by Portuguese law, when there are 
direct heirs present. You and your cousin 
must each have a third share of whatever 
she has to leave. It is only the remainder 
of which she can freely dispose. 

“Oh, indeed,” said Guida, “I did not 
know that.” 

So that the plea of seeking only for jus- 
tice failed her. There had been no need 
for that revelation of the existence of a 
daughter of the outcast, which was almost 
certainly the agitating thought at the root 
of Donna Guilhermina’s illness. Alvaro’s 
daughter need only have bided her time, 
and all would have been well. 

“But it was not for myself,” she pleaded 
in that inner tribunal where the arraigned 
culprit already suffered the tortures of the 
condemned. The thought brought little 
relief. 

“At any rate, dear child,” continued the 
old doctor, answering half-unconsciously. 


244 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


perhaps, her look of pain. “You have the 
consolation of knowing that you have done 
what you could. But for your care, she 
might not be alive now. That will always 
be your consolation.” 

“When I remember that I have perhaps 
caused her death,” thought Guida, bitterly, 
as she watched the kind old man out of sight 
down the avenue of palm-trees leading to 
the gate, then turned back toward the sick- 
room, where she had of late passed the 
greater part of ten weary days and nights. 
But she did not enter. The old priest, 
whom Donna Guilhermina had sent for 
that morning, had arrived during the doc- 
tor’s visit and was now with her. So Guida 
sat down in one of the long wicker chairs, 
made in the island, which furnished the 
veranda, and laid her weary head against 
a cushion, closing her eyes to shut out the 
golden light which seemed to mock her anx- 
iety. It was very still, only a hum of in- 
sects filled the air, warmed through and 
through by the midday sunshine. From 
far below came a murmur made up of the 
noises of the distant town, and from the 


GUIDA AND JOHN MARTYN 245 

Other side of the quinta, where two women, 
barefooted, and with sleeves over their el- 
bows, were washing in the big stone tank 
under an arbor of now leafless vines, the 
plaintive notes of a fado floated across to 
her: 

“As amores, mais as penas 
Nasceram de uma so mae; 

So quern pena, tern amores, 

So quern ama, penas tem.” 

“Our loves as well as sorrows, 

Are of one mother born; 

Only he who suffers, loves, 

Only he who loves, has sorrows.” 

Guida remembered the afternoon on the 
boat when Lucy Hamer had sung another 
verse to the same sad little tune, and she 
had listened for the first time to a song of 
her own land, her heart, so sorrowful just 
before at the parting with her betrothed, 
beating high with the unexpected good for- 
tune of meeting her cousin and namesake 
on the very threshold of her enterprise. 
How high her hopes had run, and now — 
Well, she had what she asked for, what 
had seemed more than she had dared to 


246 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


hope. John was surely on the way to com- 
plete health, John, who had so short a time 
before been the one affection of her lonely 
life. 

The plaintive song was very soothing, 
and the mild air made one drowsy after so 
many broken nights. Guida’s closed eyes 
did not open when the priest, accompanied 
by Cacilda, passed out by the glass door on 
to the veranda and paused a moment beside 
her, his brown old face full of kindly sym- 
pathy. 

“She never leaves her for more than a 
couple of hours at a time,” whispered the 
woman. “She could not be more devoted.” 

The old man nodded. “A true Alva- 
renga,” he said, looking at the pale face 
against the gay cushion, “and yet not much 
like her father, either.” 

“No, not at all like him, nor her mother. 
And yet, at times, her ways remind me 
strongly of the old master, Senhor Alvaro, 
the Senhora’s husband, God speak to his 
soul.” 

Guida was still sleeping when Cacilda 
tip-toed past her again into the sick-room. 


GUIDA AND JOHN MARTYN 247 

She had not stirred when, fully an hour 
later, the old woman came hurrying out, 
white-faced and alarmed. 

menina, menina,” she cried, “the Sen- 
hora is worse, the Senhora is dying.” 

The girl started to her feet bewildered. 
Cacilda seized her arm. 

“Come quickly, she is calling for you! I 
fear she is dying, oh, heavenly Father, dy- 
ing!” 

She wrung her hands as she hastened be- 
hind Guida into the sick-room. The old 
lady, lying very white and still upon her 
pillows, turned a long, anguished look upon 
her granddaughter as she bent over her and 
tried in vain to speak. 

“Go, Cacilda,” said the girl, “and send at 
once for the doctor, any doctor, at once. 
Send Jacintho, the gardener, more than one 
messenger.” 

Cacilda hurried out and Guida, bending 
down again, held a glass of cordial to her 
grandmother’s lips. With an effort she 
swallowed a drop or two, and, after a mo- 
ment, something of the gray, deathlike 
shadow seemed to lift from her face. 


248 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Margarida,” she whispered, and then 
after a long pause, “there is something I 
want to tell you.” 

Guida bent over tenderly and wiped her 
damp forehead. 

“Presently,” she said. “Drink a little 
more of this.” 

Again she drank a few drops, and a faint 
tinge of color flowed back into her lips. 
She closed her eyes as if to gather all her 
strength, and then opening them, looked up 
into the girl’s troubled face. 

“Margarida,” she said. “I meant to be 
firm, to be just only, but I have not the 
strength. I can not forget that he was my 
son, too.” 

She paused as if exhausted. Guida bent 
over her in alarm. 

“Oh, you must not tire yourself,” she said. 
“Rest, do not try to talk. The doctor will be 
here in a minute.” 

And indeed not more than five had passed 
when the doctor appeared, not the old Ger- 
man, but John Martyn, whom the gardener 
had stopped just outside the gate and 
begged to come at once. He nodded to 


GUIDA AND JOHN MARTYN 249 

Guida, who looked up at him imploringly 
from her seat beside the bed, and bent over 
the patient, who lay once more with closed 
eyes, apparently in a state of stupor. 

“What have you been giving her?” he 
asked, taking up the glass which she had put 
down, and smelling the contents. “Yes, 
that is right. Tell them to bring some 
brandy,” he went on, and then, when Guida 
had given the order to Cacilda: 

“That is all we can do for the present. 
The attack is due apparently to some agita- 
tion, reacting on a state of excessive weak- 
ness ” 

“Is she dying?” whispered Guida, with 
dry lips. 

He looked at her drawn white face with 
more of his old manner than he had shown 
so far. 

“No, I do not think so,” he said, very 
gently. “But she is old, you know, and has 
suffered much.” 

As if an echo to the words she could not 
have heard nor indeed understood came a 
wail from the sick woman. 


250 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“I have not the strength. He was my son, 
too.” 

John knitted his brows. He was a quick 
student of language and understood her 
meaning, though he himself could not speak 
Portuguese. 

“Can you not relieve her mind?” he 
asked Guida. “If she could cease to worry, 
there would be a better chance for her.” 

But Guida shook her head helplessly as 
she clasped the thin hot hand in hers. Donna 
Guilhermina seemed to recognize her touch, 
for she opened her eyes and drew the girl 
feebly down toward her. 

“I was just, Margarida,” she said, clearly 
enough, though her voice hardly rose above 
a whisper, “but only the merciful can expect 
mercy. Alvaro’s daughter is innocent of 
her father’s crime. You will not let her 
want.” 

It was not a question, and she waited for 
no answer, but closed her eyes again wearily 
and turned a little as if seeking to sleep. 
After a moment’s dead silence, John Martyn 
bent over her. 

“She is sleeping,” he whispered. “It is 


GUIDA AND JOHN MARTYN 251 

the best remedy.” With a gesture he mo- 
tioned Guida away from the bedside, and 
with another signed to Cacilda to darken 
the room. A moment later he and Guida 
stood outside on the veranda. There was a 
set look on the young man’s face as he turned 
to her. 

“There is one thing I should like you to 
explain,” he said in a voice, the coldness of 
which seemed all the more intense for its 
being so controlled and so low, “if you can, 
that is to say — and that is how you come to 
be here in your cousin’s place?” 

Guida’s only answer was a dry sob. At 
the moment so many emotions were at war 
within her breast that John’s anger seemed 
hardly to matter. She had known that the 
confession must come some time, but now — 
he might have spared her, she thought 
numbly, at least for a few hours. Of course 
all must be over between them. What was 
that Donna Guilhermina had said. “Her 
father’s crime?” And she was dying! 

A dark look crossed the young man’s face 
as she kept silence and his lips tightened. 

“If I remember rightly your explanation 


252 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


was vague on that point the other day. It 
struck me at the time,” he continued, “and 
to judge by what I have just heard, I am not 
the only one who was deceived. Donna 
Guilhermina does not know who you are?” 

“No,” said Guida. What had her father 
done that only the hand of death was strong 
enough to force a little pity for his daughter 
from his own mother’s heart? 

“Then you are here under false pre- 
tences?” 

Guida bowed her head. If only she had 
never left the land of her birth! There she 
might have lived peacefully, and unknow- 
ing the dark secrets which in this country 
of sunshine and flowers made her an 
intruder and an outcast. 

“I will not ask how you carried out the 
trick, and I need not ask its motive ” 

She looked up then, a gleam of hope 
crossing her face. It had been for him, only 
for him! But he continued, casting a scorn- 
ful look around him. 

“The inheritance was fair enough, in all 
conscience, to tempt a less adventurous 
spirit. Well, I wish you joy of it. You will 


GUIDA AND JOHN MARTYN 253 


excuse me, however, if I decline to have 
any part or parcel in it or its owner.” 

She made no protest, only looked at him 
— a long, strange look, which in spite of his 
righteous indignation, stirred something of 
the old affection he was crushing down so 
rigidly. 

“Oh, Guida,” he said in a burst of genu- 
ine passion and pain, “how could you? Was 
it all a cheat, your honest independence, and 
frank courage in facing the world, were 
they none of them genuine, the qualities 
which won my love?” 

“Hush,” she said, “you will wake her. If 
she sleeps she may yet be saved.” 

He moved away impatiently, forcing 
back the flood of words which rose to his 
lips. What was the use of words? Noth- 
ing could undo what had been done. The 
daughter of a prodigal, if not worse, she 
had justified the strain of evil blood in her. 
How had it come about that he, to whom 
truth and sincerity were the dearest things 
in life, had let himself be so deceived, be 
made the very accomplice of her cheating? 
Oh, it was maddening to think ofl With- 


254 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


out another word or look, he turned away, 
and passing from the shadow of the ve- 
randa into the blinding sunlight beyond, 
left her. 


CHAPTER XX 

THE DECLARATION 

T he sun was shining that afternoon in 
Oporto also, but with a greatly di- 
minished brilliance, a garish light which 
accentuated the keenness of the cold. The 
sky was pale blue instead of sapphire, and 
there was a cutting wind, which browned 
the edges of the camellias, growing every- 
where in reckless profusion, and raised 
clouds of glittering granite-dust in the hilly 
streets. A great cloud of it, sweeping 
viciously by, nearly blinded Mollie when 
she stepped out of the car at the door of 
Donna Guiomar’s house. 

Ten days had passed since the festivities 
for Mafalda’s engagement, ten busy days, 
for the wedding was to take place before 
Lent, and Easter was early that year. But 
in spite of her interest in the trousseau and 
the new house, Mollie had elected to spend 
this afternoon, as she had spent several of 
late, with the invalid lady. Luiz had been 


256 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


called away on business to Lisbon the very 
day after the ball, and the rest of the family 
had done their best to relieve his mother’s 
loneliness. It was a duty which had cost 
Mollie absolutely no effort, even though 
Soledade was too busy to make a third in 
the long talks they had together. It was 
even more interesting to talk of past times 
with Donna Guiomar, who had been her 
father’s playmate long ago, than to discuss 
the future with Mafalda, entrancing 
though these discussions might be. She 
hardly knew Vasco, though ready enough 
to credit him with the possession of all the 
virtues which Mafalda found in him. But 
Luiz’s mother, at least, could not be sus- 
pected of not knowing what she was talking 
about when she related incidents concerning 
her son, and summed up the perfections 
which adorned his character, some of which 
Mollie had even managed to discover for 
herself. 

Yes, a visit to Donna Guiomar was any- 
thing but a penance, Mollie told herself, 
especially on this steely blue afternoon when 
the pavement rang metallically under 


THE DECLARATION 


257 


one’s heels and the wind seemed to cut 
through one’s thickest wraps, while a gentle 
warmth reigned in the light, pleasant room, 
always fragrant with flowers and exquisitely 
fresh and neat. 

“It is so good of you to come, little Mar- 
garida,” said Donna Guiomar, turning 
slowly on her pillows. “I was longing for 
a young face, and for yours more than any 
other. It was good of you to give an after- 
noon to me.” 

“It is good to be here with you,” said 
Mollie, throwing off her furs, which for 
the first time that winter almost she had 
found appropriate to the temperature. “It 
is horrid outside and always delightful 
here.” 

“Especially when you are here,” said 
Donna Guiomar. 

Mollie laughed merrily, holding out 
both her hands to the flame, which leaped 
and danced among the logs on the open 
hearth. 

“Oh, I told Luiz the other day that I 
knew where he got his talent for compli- 
ments. And then they accuse us Irish of 


258 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


blarney! If we have the defect, it must 
have been our first ancestors who brought 
it with them when they sailed from Lisbon 
north into the unknown seas. You see I 
have profited by the lessons of history Luiz 
recommended to me.” 

His mother smiled wisely, while Mollie 
rubbed her cold hands vigorously. 

“Oh, I understand now,” she said, “why 
Miss Hamer, Miss Smith, and the others 
sigh for England in the winter, and grum- 
ble at the cold here. In many of the 
houses one really does feel it keenly, but the 
least little bit of fire is enough to make it 
quite warm’ enough most days. Oh, how 
lovely!” 

The exclamation referred to a big bunch 
of lilies of the valley, loosely arranged in a 
silver vase on the table, of which Mollie 
had caught sight as she turned away from 
the fire. “Do these grow here, too?” 

“No, they come from Lisbon. Luiz sent 
them this morning. But the perfume is a 
little strong for me. I thought perhaps you 
would take them when you go.” 

“Would it not be robbing you?” said 


THE DECLARATION 259 

Mollie, flushing with pleasure. “Are you 
sure that Luiz will not mind?” 

“Quite sure,” said his mother, with an- 
other smile. “What do you think?” 

But if Mollie heard the question, she 
apparently considered it one of those which 
need no answer, for she made none, only 
busied herself taking off her fur cap, and 
then, having drawn out of her bag a bit of 
embroidery, came and sat down on her 
usual low chair beside the couch. 

For a while they talked of the coming 
wedding, Mollie giving details of the vari- 
ous marvels of delicate stitchery in progress 
in different convents and the pieces of work, 
cushions and the like for the new house, 
undertaken by Soledade and herself. 

“But I can only do easy and simple 
things,” said she. “Beside Soledade’s, my 
fingers are all thumbs.” 

Donna Guiomar smiled, taking the 
graceful, girlish hand in her own and strok- 
ing it slowly. 

“Yes, Soledade is clever,” she said, “and 
not only with her needle. She has read 
and thought a good deal, and she is a thor- 


260 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

oughly nice girl. I am very fond of Sole- 
dade.” 

“So am I,” said Mollie, heartily, “and of 
Mafalda, too. I do hope she will be 
happy.” 

“Oh, I think so. Vasco is a good boy, 
and very much in love with her. I feel 
sure that Mafalda will be happy.” 

There was a silence between them, heavy 
with thought, and then Donna Guiomar 
spoke with a little sigh. 

“After all, what is happiness? It is all 
a question of degree. Some want joy and 
prosperity, love and comfort, and never a 
crumpled roseleaf in it all. While for 
others just mere freedom from pain would 
be happiness. And yet perhaps not exactly. 
One grows not only to carry one’s cross, but 
to hug it. Suffering becomes in time the 
mine of gold which one can coin into bless- 
ings for those one loves.” 

Mollie looked up, her blue eyes wet with 
sympathy. 

“When one is patient and brave— but the 
lesson must be horribly hard to learn.” 

“Without a Master it would be impos- 


THE DECLARATION 


261 


sible,” said Donna Guiomar, and for a mo- 
ment closed her eyes. In the clear cold 
afternoon light every line and furrow on the 
pale face could be read with painful dis- 
tinctness, and the girl’s heart swelled with 
pity. The sick lady, lifting her tired lids, 
caught her look of honest sympathy and 
drew her closer. 

“There are compensations,” she said. “If 
I had not been a helpless clog on him for 
these ten years past, I should never have 
learned so well what my son’s heart was 
like. Can you believe it, Mollie? You 
may have heard something of what peo- 
ple say, and Luiz knows little more than 
they. For all he could tell, it might be 
true at least in part, that my illness was 
merely a thing of the nerves, a thing I could 
have conquered, at any rate in the begin- 
ning. No, he knows nothing, for I am 
glad to say I have been able to hide the 
worst of the pain from him, and the doctor, 
who alone knows, has kept my secret faith- 
fully. But never in all these years, by word 
or look, has he betrayed anything with re- 
gard to my illness but the purest love and 


262 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


pity — nay, more than that, no thought that 
was not of the purest love and pity has en- 
tered his mind. Is not that worth some 
suffering, worth even the death by inches 
which is my fate?” 

Mollie nodded. She could not trust her 
voice to speak, but the sick lady read her 
face like a book. 

“And you?” she went on. “Oh, that day 
you came here first, I watched you anx- 
iously. I knew what they would hint — even 
my dearest friends, even Soledade, perhaps. 
No, she would say nothing, but I have read 
it sometimes in her eyes. Pity indeed, but 
a little incredulity, a little scorn, almost, for 
one who could make so small an effort to 
conquer her weakness and save her son’s 
life from being wasted. But when you 
came back from your talk with Mafalda, 
over there on the veranda, to bid me good- 
by, Mollie, and there was nothing in those 
blue eyes of yours but the purest sympathy, 
then I knew that Luiz had not been too 
lavish in his praise when he said that you 
were your father’s daughter unalloyed.” 

She ended with a smile, a much-meaning 


THE DECLARATION 


263 


smile, which brought the blood to Mollie’s 
cheek and again there was silence between 
them, till Donna Guiomar began again, 
speaking very softly, while Mollie, crouch- 
ing beside her couch, her face half-hidden 
against the embroidered Chinese silk cover- 
let, listened like one in a happy, bewildered 
dream. 

“It had always been a hope of mine,” 
she said, “from the days when my sturdy 
boy used to leave his books and his dogs to 
play at baby games with Diogo’s little 
daughter — a trio of children together, 
Diogo, Luiz, and little Mollie — such a 
laughing, merry baby as you were, Mollie, 
and such a little tyrant, though never too 
imperious for your willing slaves! Oh, 
those were golden days, only too short. 
Death came, suddenly, unexpectedly, to 
your father, and to me this illness. They 
told me it might be years before the end 
came — and it has been years, and though 
it is nearer, much nearer, it may still be 
years. How could I ever hope to realize 
my dream? And how could I prevail upon 
my son even to try and realize his? For 


264 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


you see, Mollie, the years had set up bar- 
riers where there had been none. You had 
become all that remained to two families, 
and an heiress besides. Do you know that I 
trembled when Donna Guilhermina gave 
me news of your coming? I have grown 
something of a coward at the thought of 
new suffering. It is hard to be an obstacle, 
always and always, Mollie, in the path of 
those you love. But when, on the night 
of your arrival, Luiz, my grave, quiet Luiz, 
excited and happy as I have not seen him 
for years, brought me the news of the day’s 
doings, I breathed again. Another grand- 
child to share the duties and the fortune! 
It was a solution I had never dreamed of. 
And then, when I saw you, the little Mol- 
lie of old days, grown into just such a girl 
as I had often pictured, with your mother’s 
pretty ways, your father’s heart of gold — 
Do not blush, child. It is not only fortunes 
we leave our children; brave, noble hearts 
and lives well-lived make an inheritance far 
better worth having. Well, when I saw 
you, then I, too, poor wreck that I am, I 
began to dream of happiness.” 


THE DECLARATION 


265 


She ended and closed her eyes again. But 
Mollie, as if in answer to her unspoken 
thought, lifted her head and pressed her 
fresh young lips, first to the thin white 
fingers, and then, with the lightest pressure, 
against the withered cheek. And Donna 
Guiomar, her eyes full of tears, returned the 
silent avowal of a mother’s right thus ex- 
pressed, by a long kiss on the smooth white 
forehead. Then all at once her grasp tight- 
ened on Mollie’s hand. There was a step 
on the stairs, an unexpected step, since Luiz 
was in Lisbon. 

But it was Luiz who stood on the thresh- 
old. The long, level rays of the setting sun, 
shining full into his face, dazzled him for a 
moment as he entered the room, so that he 
was beside his mother’s couch before he 
saw that she was not alone. Then the joy 
which already shone in his eyes trans- 
figured the whole grave face. 

“Mother!” he exclaimed, bending over 
her hand, and repeating the graceful greet- 
ing which is an ancient custom of the coun- 
try. “I got back sooner than I hoped. I 
was able to finish yesterday evening, and 


266 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

catch the early train this morning. And, 
little cousin — it is good to have you both 
together.” 

“Yes, it is good,” said his mother, “so 
good that for my part, I only wish you 
would waste no more time in asking Mol- 
lie to stay with us always.” 

“Oh!” said Mollie^ getting to her feet. 
She had not expected such a sudden attack. 
But Donna Guiomar had again closed her 
eyes and turned her head away. Luiz 
stepped forward, his whole face alight with 
joyous eagerness. 

“Oh, Mollie,” he said, stretching out both 
his hands, “Mollie!” 

No words could have been more elo- 
quent. The girl looked at him as he stood, 
transfigured in the golden sunset light. That 
would pass in a moment and the gray twi- 
light follow, but she knew in her inmost 
heart as she held out her own hands to take 
his that there was that between them which 
would never pass, a flame of love burning 
in the inmost being of each, which time 
would only feed and eternity consecrate. 


CHAPTER XXI 


JUSTICE 

T he golden light of the same sunset, 
which had shone an hour before on 
Mollie’s betrothal, had not yet fully faded 
from the western sky, when Guida stood 
watching the vanishing procession of 
torchbearers who had accompanied the 
Viaticum from the parish church to the 
Quinta das Heras. Young and old had 
left their work at the sound of the bell sum- 
moning them to the pious task, and with 
a few soldiers to make up the necessary 
number, clad every one in the deep rose 
silk capes which were now fluttering in the 
evening breeze between the palm-trees, had 
formed round the canopy under which the 
priest in veil and cope bore the Blessed 
Sacrament. 

The smell of the hot wax still lingered 
in the room behind her, where Cacilda was 
putting out the lights, and removing the 
267 


268 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


altar-cloth. Her grandmother lay very 
white and weary, but apparently no weaker 
than at the doctor’s visit that morning. It 
had been her own wish to receive the Last 
Sacraments, a wish expressed on rousing 
herself from the long sleep or stupor into 
which she had fallen after the visit of John 
Martyn. Now she was resting again, 
sleeping, or perhaps unconscious. Would 
she pass from that sleep to death, Guida 
wondered, without another word of affec- 
tion, or farewell? And would there never 
be another chance of confessing? It would 
make no difference now. No agitation 
could harm the nearly worn out heart, 
whose few last beats on earth were already 
numbered. 

The last rose-colored cape disappeared 
beyond the wall, the last lights vanished 
at the turn of the road, the bell sounded 
fainter and fainter and then died into si- 
lence. Guida turned away, back into the 
sick-room, and sat in her old place beside 
the bed, waiting. On the other side, Ca- 
cilda was saying her rosary, the low mur- 
mur of her voice punctuated with stifled 


JUSTICE 269 

sobs. It was very quiet in the big, dimly- 
lit room, and, but for that persistent odor 
of hot wax, no different from any other of 
the many evenings when they had sat thus, 
Cacilda and she, watching by the sick lady. 
Was it not one of those other evenings and 
the events of the day merely an evil dream, 
thought Guida ; was she not dreaming now, 
and would she not wake to hear her grand- 
mother saying: 

“Margarida, dearest, it is time for you to 
go to rest. You must be tired of sitting here 
so long.” 

So real had the fancy become as the quiet 
minutes passed, that her grandmother’s 
voice speaking at last, hardly recalled her 
to a sense of the reality.. 

“Margarida, dearest,” she said faintly, 
stretching out a hand to seek her own. 
Guida slipped to her knees so that their 
faces were on a level. 

“You have been a good child,” whispered 
the weak voice, “a good child like your 
father.” 

The words brought back with a rush all 
the bitter reality of things. With a stifled 


270 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


sob Guida pressed her lips to the hand she 
held. It moved gently and the sick lady 
gave a little sigh, a quiet sigh which died 
softly into silence. Cacilda’s murmured 
prayer had ceased. Then, with an effort, 
Guida spoke at last. 

“No, I have not been good,” she said, 
her cheek against the limp hand. “Can 
you forgive me, grandmother? I have de- 
ceived you. I am Alvaro’s daughter, not 
Diogo’s, as you think.” 

There was a gasp in the silence, but it 
was Cacilda who gave it, and then held her 
breath. It seemed to Guida as if the whole 
world was holding its breath, so dead was 
the silence and so long. 

“Oh, meu Deus, meu Deus!" whispered 
Cacilda, at last, fumbling with fingers that 
shook, for a light. She raised it above the 
bed, letting its rays fall upon the still 
figure. 

^‘Ai, ^tnhor . . . Lord of my soul!” 

she cried, and Guida lifted her head. 

“What is it, what has happened, Ca- 
cilda?” she asked trembling, though even 
as she asked, she knew. She gave one long 



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JUSTICE 271 

look at the white still face on the pillow; 
then all the world darkened around her 
and with a sob of utter desolation, she 
slipped together into an unconscious heap 
on the floor. 

***** 

She awoke in her own room. She was 
lying on her bed, fully dressed still, though 
some one had opened her dress at the neck, 
and her hair was damp around her fore- 
head. A candle flickered on the table be- 
side her, and by its light she saw that she 
was alone, alone with her weakness as she 
must be henceforth with her sorrow. 

She was drifting back again to the stu- 
por from which she had awakened when 
the door opened and Cacilda entered. The 
light in her hand showed her wrinkled old 
face wet with tears and the unusually stern 
set of the good-natured mouth. She stood 
at the foot of the bed looking at the girl in 
silence for a moment, then she spoke. 

“She did not hear you,” she said. “She 
was dead already, thank God for that.” 

Guida did not answer, and after a mo- 
ment the old woman continued, speaking 


272 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


with a certain stern rudeness which quite 
ignored the old relations of mistress and 
maid. 

“But it was true, what you said? You 
would not tell a lie then?” 

“Yes, it is true,“ said Guida. 

“Who was your mother, where do you 
come from, how did you come?” 

Too broken to resist, the girl related the 
story of her life and the incidents of that 
morning which now seemed so infinitely far 
away. 

“And she never guessed, my mistress. 
Nothing told her that she was being de- 
ceived, robbed — yes, robbed, she and the 
child she loved.” 

For Guida had made a dumb motion of 
protest. 

“Was it not enough that your father took 
her father’s life, that you must take her 
fortune, too?” 

“Oh!” Guida stretched out her hands 
with an imploring gesture, but the old wo- 
man went on relentlessly. 

“Yes! I swore to my mistress that the 
little one should never know from me and 


JUSTICE 273 

I have kept my word. But I said nothing 
about Alvaro’s daughter. Who thought of 
Alvaro’s daughter, when the murderer crept 
away in the dawn, helped and sheltered be- 
cause of his brother’s prayer and the honor 
of the name, but an outcast forever? She 
must never know, unless indeed, after her 
father and her money, you wish to steal her 
peace of mind.” 

“Oh!” cried Guida. “Can it give you 
pleasure to torture me? Mollie would be 
more merciful.” 

The old woman’s face changed, softened 
for a moment, then stiffened again. 

“Not if, instead of being the daughter 
who lost him when she was too young to 
feel her loss, she had been the one to nurse 
him, to rear him, the one who loved him 
best on earth, yes, better than his own 
mother — whose care and thought were all 
for the worthless elder, till he broke her 
heart. Then she let my Diogo in. But I 
had him first, and I never lost him, not even 
when mother and wife and child all had 
their share — he was mine still.” 

“And my father killed him?” 


274 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


It seemed like a nightmare. Never had 
she thought, in all the dreary speculations 
of the last hours, of anything like this. 

“Yes, your father killed him. He came 
to Freamunde, slinking like a thief in the 
night, beggared again with his gambling 
and his wild life, to see what more he could 
wring from those whom he had all but 
ruined already. It had been Senhor Diogo’s 
care and hard work alone which had saved 
the old place then, and since, the Sen- 
hora’s chief interest in life was to build 
again a bright future for his child. No one 
knew that Alvaro had returned to the coun- 
try. He had promised again, as he had 
promised before, to leave it for good, and 
try at least to begin a new life in some new 
land. But he broke that promise like all 
the rest. Slinking through the village like 
a thief, muffled up in this thick varino, but 
almost in rags underneath, he overheard 
one farmer say to another in a wineshop 
that he had that day paid his dues up at 
the quinta, he and several more, so that 
there must be a good sum of money in the 
house. Alvaro said later that he meant to 


JUSTICE 275 

ask for it; he swore it even, but who knows? 
Perhaps he did. At any rate, when he 
reached the house, he found the door still 
open on to the terrace. Senhor Diogo, God 
rest his soul, liked to come out of an eve- 
ning for half an hour, or it might be an hour 
even, under the stars, to smoke his cigar 
and walk up and down, up and down, as 
if it were on his quarter-deck. Perhaps he 
fancied it was. We used to call it the mas- 
ter’s watch. He was on the terrace, then, 
when Alvaro slunk up. But he had stopped 
at the end furthest from the door to look 
at something. I have thought it must have 
been the lighted window of the nursery, 
but I shall never be sure. And while his 
back was turned the other slipped in. 
Surely he meant to steal, else why did he 
not walk up openly? Senhor Diogo was 
not one to turn him away. When he finished 
his cigar and came in, bolting the door as 
usual behind him, he noticed the light in the 
study and thought that he had forgotten to 
put it out. At the moment, the Senhora 
Donna Moira called to him from the stairs. 


276 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


‘Is that you, Diogo? I thought I heard 
you come in just now.’ 

“ ‘Yes, it is I, carissima,’ he called back, 
and turned into the study to put out the 
light. There he saw the desk open and a 
dark figure bending over it. At the same 
instant the light was blown out, and the 
man flung himself toward the door. Sen- 
hor Diogo caught him in his arms and there 
was a grim struggle in the dark. 

“ ‘Let me go,’ panted the man, ‘let me 
go, or it will be the worse for you.’ But 
Senhor Diogo held fast. He never guessed 
who it was, or he might have let go, but 
even the voice was changed with the life 
he had led, and the cloak was of coarse, 
rough stuff such as his brother had never 
worn. The man struggled and twisted till 
all at once Diogo let go. There was a sharp 
pain in his breast and his hand was wet. 

“ ‘I told you to let me go,’ said the other 
hoarsely, and this time he knew him. 

“ ‘Alvaro, it is you,’ he said. ‘I think you 
have killed me.’ ” 

“But he did not know it was his 
brother,” said Guida. She was sitting up 


JUSTICE 277 

on the bed, her white face bent eagerly 
toward the speaker, who told the dreadful 
story like one who has long thought and 
pondered over its every phase. 

“He said he did not,” rejoined she. 
“Perhaps it was true — but he could have 
heard him speak outside.” 

“He said he did not.” 

“Yes. When we came a moment later 
with lights, he was kneeling beside him, 
holding up his head. There were only we 
three, Donna Guilhermina, Donna Moira, 
and I. Luckily the other servants had been 
sent to bed. He helped to carry his brother 
to his room. The old doctor was a friend. 
When he saw the wound they told him the 
story, of course, but it went no farther. He 
promised to keep silence. Senhor Alvaro 
left the house with him secretly, stayed two 
days in his house, and then, on the night of 
the funeral — Diogo died toward evening 
on the day following the attack, he left the 
country. No one knew. No one knows 
now. The doctor is dead. They are all 
dead but I — all of them, God have their 
souls.” 


278 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“But he did not know it was his brother.” 
There was a grain of consolation in the 
thought. Touched, perhaps, by the for- 
lornness of her whole attitude, Cacilda 
added: 

“Senhor Diogo believed him. He for- 
gave him, Jie had a heart of gold. I could 
not — not for long. It came between me and 
God. But she whom God has taken had a 
struggle, too, a long struggle. And because 
he had forfeited all part and right in his 
name and his family, in his country even, 
because all he could do was to slink away 
and be heard of no more, that is why 
Donna Guilhermina, God keep her, once 
she knew he had a daughter, determined 
to use the means she could for justice to be 
done. Yes, it was justice, because he had 
spent and wasted more than his part, far 
more, already. It was justice, but ft was 
not like Diogo’s daughter to be so thought- 
ful about money and so eager for her 
rights.” 

“But I do not understand,” said Guida. 
“I told my grandmother about her eldest 
son’s having a daughter because, later, I 


JUSTICE 279 

hoped to tell her the rest. How could I 
guess from the outset what there was to 
keep her forever out of any lot or part in 
the family she thought her own? When 
Donna Guilhermina spoke of an inheri- 
tance, it gave me the opportunity to men- 
tion her. Anything else might have done 
as well. It is true she took it as an act of 
generosity, and gave me words of praise 
which were part of my punishment.” 

The old woman laughed contemptuously. 

“She gave you more,” she said, “which 
will be the rest of it, perhaps. She sent for 
the notary to draw up a deed of gift, by 
which Freamunde and all the other prop- 
erty, except a small part, was made over 
unconditionally and at once to you. Oh, 
you have managed your business well.” 

“To me?” said Guida, bewildered, and 
then it was her turn to laugh, a loud, bitter 
laugh which rang out strangely in the si- 
lence of the house of death. She had in- 
deed managed well, and she was reaping 
her reward. 

Cacilda looked at her, slightly alarmed. 

“Oh, do you not see?” she said. “Justice 


280 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


has been done. Had I said nothing, had I 
bided my time, and thought only of my 
pupils and my teaching, I should now be 
co-heiress with Mollie of Freamunde and 
the rest. Oh, justice has indeed been done! 
Think a moment. The deed of gift makes 
over everything, unconditionally, to Maria 
Margarida Alvarenga, which might be me 
as it is Mollie. But surely, surely, Donna 
Guilhermina did not forget to add: ‘daugh- 
ter of my beloved son, Diogo.’ ” 

Cacilda stared at her a moment, then 
clasped her hands joyfully. 

“True, true,” she said. “Of course that 
is how she put it. I remember hearing the 
notary ask how to spell Moira. True — and 
so Diogo’s daughter has her father’s share, 
after all.” 

“And Alvaro’s daughter has his,” said 
Guida, wearily. “Justice has been done.” 


CHAPTER XXII 
GUIDA’S SHARE 



LEGRIA scribbled the last words of her 


1 JL exercise with small regard for or- 
thography, gave a great sigh of relief, and 
shut up the copybook, entirely forgetting to 
blot the page. 

“Donna Miquelina will give you a bad 
note for that to-morrow,” remarked Nuno, 
who was busy at the other end of the table 
coloring a drawing of his own execution. 

“Oh, well, to-morrow is some way off,” 
said Alegria philosophically, “besides. I’ll 
only show it to her at the end of the lesson, 
when she has to hurry away to catch her 
train. Come along, Nuno. I am going to 
play now in the garden.” 

The three girls were sitting at their work 
in the room which had been their school- 
room, and was now their own special do- 
main. A big pleasant place, simply but 
prettily furnished, with a good many spec- 


281 


282 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

imens of their own handiwork in various 
directions. 

Mollie put down her embroidery to look 
for the fiftieth time in the last hour at the 
clock. Mafalda noticed the action and 
laughed merrily. 

“You will not make it go any quicker 
however often you look,” she said. “He 
can not be here before four.” 

Mollie blushed and then laughed, too. 
Her black morning dress made her look 
taller and older, but for the rest only 
served to throw up her delicate coloring 
and the liquid blueness of her eyes, more 
full than ever of light and expression. 

“Some hours are twice the usual length,” 
she said apologetically, as Soledade went 
out. 

They worked on in silence for a few min- 
utes, then Nuno looked up. 

“Oh, Mafaldinha, do tell me. Are you 
sure I have painted this lady’s dress the 
right fashionable shade? She is a little like 
you.” 

“Thanks,” said Mafalda, laughing as she 
contemplated the weird production which 


GUIDA’S SHARE 


283 


Nuno showed her in all seriousness. “Now, 
it is time to put away your paints. Your 
master will be here in about five minutes. 
What are you doing in that drawer?” 

“Only putting my painting away with 
yours. I do not want it to get spoiled,” re- 
turned Nuno, who had a high idea of the 
value of his artistic efforts. Then he, too, 
went out, but returned after a moment. 

“I say, there is a cab outside — a visit, I 
suppose.” 

“It is too early for either Vasco or Luiz,” 
said Mafalda. “Cypriano knows that 
mamma is not at home.” 

But a moment later Cypriano opened 
the door. 

“A visit for the Senhora Donna Mar- 
garida,” he announced, standing aside to 
give place to a slim, black-clad figure at 
whom both girls stared for a moment in as- 
tonishment. Then Mollie dropped her 
work and advanced with outstretched 
hands. 

“Guida,” she said. “Oh, my poor Guida, 
how ill you look!” 

“I have been ill,” said Guida quietly. 


284 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

“For a few days I was very ill. But I am 
better now. I have come to say good-by.” 
She had not taken Mollie’s hand. 

“Good-by, but where are you going? Do 
sit down. Mafalda, this is — ” 

But Mafalda, with a slight inclination 
to the newcomer, had withdrawn quietly 
through the nearest window. 

“I am going back to America,” said 
Guida. 

“To America?” said Mollie, her eyes 
wide with astonishment. “But I thought, 
you told me — ^John Martyn?” 

“John Martyn has no longer anything 
to say in my affairs,” said Guida. Her voice 
was controlled, but she could not quite re- 
strain the nervous quiver of her lips as she 
said the name. 

“He is not — not worse?” asked Mollie, 
puzzled and dismayed. 

“No, he is out of danger and not likely 
to have a relapse in the new life he has 
adopted. He has gone as ship’s doctor on 
one of those sailing-ships which ply be- 
tween Glasgow and New Zealand. He had 
the offer from a friend the very day before 


GUIDA’S SHARE 


285 


he left England for Madeira, but said noth- 
ing about it so as not to undeceive me when 
I fondly hoped I was saving his life. The 
ship had just put into Funchal on the day 
our grandmother died, and he left in it next 
morning. Dr. Sartorius brought me the 
news.” 

“But, but — ” said Mollie, then stopped, 
afraid of being indiscreet. Her eyes spoke 
for her, but Guida disregarded their lan- 
guage. There was a moment’s awkward 
silence, then Mollie started joyfully. “That 
is Luiz’s step,” she said, her whole face 
lighting up, “Guida, our cousin Luiz Nor- 
onha, to whom I am engaged. Luiz, I am 
here.” 

He entered by one of the windows as she 
spoke, and she hastened toward him with 
hands outstretched and looks that would 
have been eloquent of welcome even had 
her smiling lips been silent. “How late 
you are to-day,” she said, as he took the 
hands in both his. “Luiz, this is Guida.” 

The young man looked from one face to 
the other so like and yet so different, the 
one as delicately tinted as a petal of apple- 


286 HER FATHER’S SHARE 

blossom, with fresh young lips, untouched 
by more than a child’s sorrow, and eyes 
whose blue radiance only a passing rain of 
tears had dimmed; the other, so like in 
form and yet so different in its pallor, with 
the lines of pain around the mouth, and the 
look of hopeless suffering in the weary 
eyes. 

“Luiz,” said Mollie, reading the pity in 
his face, “Guida talks of going to America. 
Explain to her what we settled when we got 
the notary’s letter and the documents a 
fortnight ago. It is not fair that I should 
have all and she nothing.” 

“Yes, it is fair,” said Guida. 

But Mollie would not heed her. 

“As we can not leave Oporto for long on 
account of Donna Guiomar,” said Mollie, 
“and because of what you told me about the 
health of Dr. Martyn, we had thought of 
giving you for your share the Funchal 
property — ” 

But Guida put out a restraining hand. She 
felt her self-command giving way. How 
could she bear any longer to witness a hap- 
piness which might have been hers, to 


GUIDA’S SHARE 287 

listen to plans which would have proved 
feasible? 

“You are too kind,” she said, “far too 
kind, and believe me, I am and shall always 
be sincerely grateful. But it can not be. 
There is no question of injustice. Those 
who know will tell you that my father had 
more than his share of the Alvarenga prop- 
erty during his lifetime.” 

But Mollie was unconvinced. 

“It is not fair,” she said. “You ought to 
have your proper share.” 

“That will be my share, work and rep- 
aration — for myself and for others. Yours 
will be, I hope, happiness, prosperity, every 
joy. And now let me go — ” 

“But you must at least tell us where, and 
promise to write — ” 

Guida interrupted her. “It is better not. 
Let me pass out of your life as I entered 
it. My only consolation is that whatever 
harm I did, I am the only sufferer. To you 
I brought no sorrow — ” 

“Oh, no,” said Mollie. “To me you gave 
my chance of happiness.” 

“May you keep it long,” she said, and 


288 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


then bowing to them both as they stood with 
hand still clasped in hand at the further side 
of the table, turned and passed from the 
room. 

Mollie started to follow her, but Luiz 
held her back. Vague rumors he had 
heard at the time of his friend’s death re- 
curred to his mind. No ordinary grief, 
not even the pain of her broken engage- 
ment, he felt sure, had written those char- 
acters on a face so young, and no ordinary 
motives dictated a resolution so extreme. 

“Let her go, Mollie dearest,” he said 
“We can see that the small part she spoke 
of is made as large as possible, and for the 
rest — it is not she who is cutting herself off 
from home and family. Her father did that 

for her long ago.” 

***** 

Guida crossed the hall without meeting 
any one, but as she closed the door behind 
her, Soledade came up the garden-path. 

“You are leaving us?” she said. “Will 
you not wait to see mamma?” 

“No, I must go,” said Guida. 

The words were simple, but the other 


GUIDA’S SHARE 


289 


girl seemed to guess the meaning that 
underlay them. She put a hand on her 
arm. 

“But so quickly, cousin!” 

Guida looked at her more attentively. 

“You are Mafalda or Soledade?” she 
asked. 

“I am Soledade.” 

“They should have given me the name.” 

“It suits me well enough,” said the girl. 
“There are many kinds of solitude.” 

“And I shall taste them all. A Deus, 
Soledade.” 

“No, no, not like that, with only the 
memory of others’ happiness to make your 
own pain worse. Oh, I know what it is, 
I who speak to you. Cousin Guida. You 
are going because you must, but we should 
have been friends, we two.” 

Guida looked down into the honest brown 
eyes and read there an understanding sym- 
pathy which she had not found in Mollie’s 
blue and happy ones. Her lips quivered 
and she turned her face away. 

“Yes, we might have been friends,” she 
said. 


290 


HER FATHER’S SHARE 


“Well, we can still be friends. What 
does distance matter? When you go into 
exile will it not be a little consolation to 
feel that you have one link with the coun- 
try which is still your own, one who re- 
members you in the home where you might 
be but for faults which are not yours? 
Guida, you must write and I will answer. 
I will give you news of home, and you will 
tell me how you do, and whether work can 
really cure pain. Promise.” 

“Yes, I promise,” said Guida, “and I 
thank you from my heart.” 

And with that little word of friendship 
as the one thing sweet in all the bitter in- 
heritance she had come so far to seek, Guida 
passed out of the sight of her kinsfolk and 
out of their happy, prosperous lives. 


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UP IN ARDMUIRLAND. Barrett. 

VOCATION OF EDWARD CONWAY, THE. Egan. 
WARGRAVE TRUST, THE. Reid. 

WAY THAT LED BEYOND, THE. Harrison. 

WEDDING BELLS OF GLENDALOUGH, THE. Earls. 
WHEN LOVE IS STRONG. Keon. 

WOMAN OF FORTUNE. Christian Reid. 


net. 


net. 


f I net. 


net. 


00 

00 

00 

00 

00 

00 

00 

00 


1 00 


1 
1 
1 
0 

0 
0 
1 
0 
1 
1 
1 
1 

0 50 

0 50 

1 25 

0 50 

1 35 
0 50 


00 

25 

35 

50 

60 

50 

35 

50 

25 

35 

25 

00 


25 

25 

50 

50 

25 

25 

25 

25 

25 


net, 1 35 


25 

25 


JUVENILES 

ALTHEA. Nirdlinger. 

ADVENTURE WITH THE APACHES, AN. Ferry. 
AS GOLD IN THE FURNACE. Copus, S.J. 

AS TRUE AS GOLD. Mannix. 

BELL FOUNDRY, THE. Schaching. 

BERKLEYS, THE. Wight. 

BEST FOOT FORWARD, THE. Finn, S.J. 
BETWEEN FRIENDS. Aumerle. 

BISTOURI. Melandri. 

BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE, THE. Taggart. 

BOB O’LINK. Waggerman. 

BROWNIE AND I. Aumerle. 

BUNT AND BILL. C. Mulholland. 

BY BRANSCOME RIVER. Taggart. 

CAMP BY COPPER RIVER, THE. Spalding, S.J. 
CAPTAIN TED. Waggaman. 

CAVE BY THE BEECH FORK, THE. Spalding. 
CHARLIE CHITTYWICK. Bearne. 

CHILDREN OF CUPA. Mannix. 

CHILDREN OF THE LOG CABIN. Delamari. 

CLARE LORAINE. “Lee.’» 

CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT. Finn, S.J. 

COLLEGE BOY, A. Yorke. 

CUPA REVISITED. Mannix. 

DADDY DAN. Waggaman. 

DEAR FRIENDS. Nirdlinger. 

DIMPLING*S SUCCESS. C. Mulholland. 

8 


0 50 
0 35 
0 85 
0 35 
0 35 
0 35 
0 85 
0 50 
0 35 
0 35 
0 35 
0 50 
0 35 
0 35 
0 85 
0 50 
0 85 
0 85 
0 35 
0 50 
0 50 
0 85 
0 85 


0 60 

0 35 


ETHELRED PRESTON. Finn, S.J. 0 

EVERY-DAY GIRL, AN. Crowley. 0 

FAIRY OF THE SNOWS, THE. Finn, S.J. 0 

FIVE BIRDS IN A NEST. Delamare. 0 

FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. 0 

FLOWER OF THE FLOCK. Egan. 0 

FOR THE WHITE ROSE. Hinkson. 0 

FREDDY CARR’S ADVENTURES. Garrold, S.J. 0 

FREDDY CARR AND HIS FRIENDS. Garrold, S.J. 0 

FRED’S LITTLE DAUGHTER. S. T. Smith. 0 

GOLDEN LILY, THE. Hinkson. 0 

GREAT CAPTAIN, THE. Hinkson. 0 

GUILD BOYS’ PLAY AT RIDINGDALE. Bearne, S.J, 0 

HALDEMAN children, the. Mannix. 0 

HARMONY FLATS. Whitmire. 0 

HARRY DEE. Finn, S.J. 0 

HARRY RUSSELL. Copus, S.J. ' 0 

HEIR OF DREAMS, AN. O’Malley. ' 0 

HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE. F:nn, S.J. 1 

HOSTAGE OF WAR. Bonesteel. 0 

HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY. Egan. 0 

IN QUEST OF THE GOLDEN CHEST. Barton. 0 

IN QUEST OF ADVENTURE. Mannix. 0 

“JACK.” 0 

JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE. Taggart. 0 

JACK O’LANTERN. Waggaman. 0 

JUNIORS OF ST. BEDE’S. Bryson. 0 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. First Series. 1 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Second Series. 1 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Third Series. 1 

KLONDIKE PICNIC, A. Donnei.ly. 0 

LEGENDS AND STORIES OF THE CHILD JESUS FROM 

MANY LANDS. Lutz. 0 

LITTLE APOSTLE ON CRUTCHES, THE. Delamare. 0 

LITTLE LADY OF THE HALL. Nora Ryeman. 0 

LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST, THE. Roberts. 0 

LITTLE MARSHALLS AT THE LAKE. Nixon-Roulet. 0 

LITTLE MISSY. Waggaman. 0 

LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCARLET. Taggart. 0 

MADCAP SET AT ST. ANNE’S, THE. Brunowe. 0 

MAD KNIGHT, THE. O. v. Schaching. 0 

MAKING OF MORTLAKE, THE. Copus, S.J. 0 

MARKS OF THE BEAR CLAWS, THE. Spalding, S.J. 0 

MARY TRACY’S FORTUNE. Sadlier. 0 

MELOR OF THE SILVER HAND. Bearne. S.J. 0 

MILLY AVELING. S. T. Smith. 0 

MIRALDA. K. M. Johnston. 0 

MORE FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. 0 

MOSTLY BOYS. Finn, S.J. 0 

MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY, THE. Sadlier. 0 

MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY, THE. Barton. 0 

MYSTERY OF HORNBY HALL, THE. Sadi,ier. 0 

NAN NOBODY. Waggaman. 0 

NED RIEDER. Wehs. 0 

NEW BOYS AT RIDINGDALE, THE. Bearne, S.J. 0 

NEW SCHOLAR AT ST. ANNE’S, THE. Brunowe. 0 

OLD CHARLMONT’S SEED BED. S. T. Smith. 0 

OLD MILL ON THE WITHROSE. Spalding, S. J. 0 

ON THE OLD CAMPING GROUND. Mannix, 0 

OUR LADY’S LUTENIST. Bearne, S.J. 0 

PANCHO AND PANCHITA. Mannix. 0 

PAULINE ARCHER. Sadlier. 0 

PERCY WYNN. Finn, S.J. 0 

PERIL OF DIONYSIO. Mannix. 0 

PETRONILLA, AND OTHER STORIES. Donnelly. 0 

PICKLE AND PEPPER. Dorsey. 0 

PILGRIM FROM IRELAND, A. Carnot. 0 

PLAYWATER PLOT. Waggaman. 0 

POLLY DAY’S ISLAND. Roberts. 0 

POVERINA. Buckenham. 0 

QUEEN’S PAGE, THE. Hinkson. 0 


85 

35 

85 

50 

50 

85 

35 

50 

50 

35 

35 

35 

85 

35 

50 

85 

85 

35 

00 

35 

50 

50 

35 

35 

SO 

35 

50 

00 

00 

00 

50 

75 

35 

35 

35 

50 

35 

85 

35 

35 

85 

85 

35 

85 

50 

35 

75 

85 

35 

50 

50 

35 

50 

85 

50 

35 

85 

85 

85 

35 

35 

85 

35 

SO 

85 

35 

SO 

50 

50 

35 


9 


QUEEN’S PROMISE, THE. Waggaman. 0 50 

RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND, THE. Spalding. SJ. 0 85 

RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS. Bonesteel. 0 35 

RIDINGDALE FLOWER SHOW. Bearne, SJ. 0 85 

ROMANCE OF THE SILVER SHOON. Bearne, S.J. 0 85 

SANDY JOE. Waggaman. 0 85 

SEA-GULL’S ROCK, THE. Sandeau. 0 35 

SEVEN LITTLE MARSHALLS, THE. Nixon-Roulet. 0 35 

SHADOWS LIFTED. Copus, S.J. 0 85 

SHEER PLUCK. Bearne, S.J. 0 85 

SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK, THE. Spalding, S.J. 0 85 

SHIPMATES. Waggaman. 0 SO 

ST. CUTHBERT’S. Copus, S.J. 0 85 

STRONG-ARM OF AVALON. Waggaman. 0 85 

SUGAR-CAMP AND AFTER, THE. Spalding, S.J. 0 85 

SUMMER AT WOODVILLE, A. Sadlier. 0 35 

TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Capella. 0 75 

TALISMAN, THE. Sadlier. 0 50 

TAMING OF POLLY, THE. Dorsey. 0 85 

THAT FOOTBALL GAME. Finn, S.J. 0 85 

THAT OFFICE BOY. Finn, S.J. 0 85 

THREE GIRLS AND ESPECIALLY ONE. Taggart, . 0 35 

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT. Mother Salome. ^ 0 50 

TOM LOSELY: BOY. Copus, S.J. 0 85 

TOM'S LUCK-POT. Waggaman. 0 35 

TOM PLAYFAIR. Finn, S.J. 0 85 

TOORALLADDY. Walsh. 0 35 

TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE, THE. Waggaman. 0 50 

TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUNTAIN, THE. Taggart, ^ 0,50 

TWO LITTLE GIRLS. Mack. 0 35 

UPS AND DOWNS OF MARJORIE. Waggaman. 0 35 

VIOLIN MAKER OF MITTENWALD^ THE. Schaching, 0 35 

WAYWARD WINIFRED. Sadlier. 0 85 

WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT. Taggart. 0 50 

WITCH OF RIDINGDALE, THE. Bearne, S.J. 0 85 

YOUNG COLOR GUARD, THE. Bonesteel. 0 35 

BENZIGER’S STANDARD FIFTY-CENT LIBRARY FOR EVERY- 

BODY 

Novels, Juveniles and Religious Books by the best Catholic Authors. 
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Sizes of books in inches: <8010, about 354 x2^; large 48mo, about 
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MISSAL, THE NEW. In English. For Every Day in 
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MY PRAYER-BOOK: HAPPINESS IN GOODNESS. 

Reflections, Counsels, Prayers and Devotions. 16mo. 1 25 
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MY PRAYER-BOOK. India Paper edition. With 
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BLESSED SACRAMENT BOOK. Offers a larger and 
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young men. Oblong 24mo. 0 75 

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the Children of Mary. Oblong 16mo. 1 25 

PRAYER-BOOK FOR RELIGIOUS. A complete 

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THOUGHTS ON THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. Reflec- 
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Life, on Perfect Charity. Small 12mo. net, 1 50 

VISITS TO JESUS IN THE TABERNACLE. Hours 
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LITTLE MANUAL OF ST. ANTHONY. Oblong 32mo. 

Qoth. 0 15 


2 00—5 00 

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2 50—3 50 
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BREAD OF LIFE, THE. A Complete Communion 
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COME, LET US ADORE. A Eucharistic Manual. By 

Rev. B. Hammer, O.F.M. Small 32mo. 0 75 

DEVOTIONS AND PRAYERS BY ST. ALPHONSUS 
LIGUORI. A Complete Manual of Pious Exercises 
for Every Day, Every Week, and Every Month. 
Ward. 16mo. 1 25 

DEVOTIONS AND PRAYERS FOR THE SICK- 
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DOMINICAN MISSION BOOK. By a Dominican 

Father. 16mo. 0 75 


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FOLLOWING OF CHRIST, THE. By Thomas A. 

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GARLAND OF PRAYER, THE. A dainty prayer- 
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GOLDEN KEY TO HEAVEN. With Epistles and 


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HELP FOR THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY. 

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INTRODUCTION TO A DEVOUT LIFE. By St. 

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KEY OF HEAVEN, THE. With Epistles and Gospels. 

48mo. 0 25 

LITTLE MANUAL OF ST. RITA. Prayers and Devo- 
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Thomas S. McGrath. 0 50 

LITTLE MASS BOOK. By Right Rev. Mgr. J. S. 

M. Lynch. Paper. 32mo. 0 10 

MANUAL OF THE HOLY NAME. 24mo. 0 50 

MANUAL OF THE SACRED HEART, NEW. Oblong 

24mo. 0 25 

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MISSION-BOOK FOR THE MARRIED. By Rev. F. 

Girardey, C.SS.R. 32mo. 0 50 

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OFFICE OF HOLY WEEK, . THE, COMPLETE. 

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